A Big Mastodon

Boobies

2010-12-04T00:12:00.003-06:00

Sometimes people tell me "Aaron, you drunk, why don't you update your blog that no one reads?"

Fuck you, that's why. I have too little to do, and too much time to do it in to be listening to every request given to me by people I make up.

Anyways. I'm updating. UPDATING MY BLAG. So here is an article about boobies.

Habits & Plans III [Gaming]

2010-12-02T15:40:00.002-06:00

Playing:

Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition; PC
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale; PC
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood; PS3

I Should Really Finish:

Dead Rising 2; X360
Fallout New Vegas; PC
Fable: The Lost Chapters (replay); XBOX
No More Heroes 2: ~~Electric Boogaloo~~ ... Desperate Struggle; Wii
Persona 4; PS2

Want to Play:

Sonic Colors; Wii
Metroid: Other M; Wii
Donkey Kong Country Returns; Wii
Epic Mickey; Wii
Deus Ex: Invisible War; PC
Lego Universe; PC
Dead Nation; PS3

Anticipating:

The Old Republic
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Bioshock Infinite
Dead Space 2
Brink

Sonic 4 Episode I [Reviews]

2010-10-18T08:18:00.004-05:00

Overview:

Its Sonic the Hedgehog, in 2.25D (3D characters, CG rendered backgrounds). If you played any Sonic game from the 90s, it will seem incredibly familiar, and its a good enough reason to jump on board. If you haven't, he runs, and jumps, and bounces on stuff. Its like Super Mario at Mach 3.

The Bad:

The Sonic model is cell-shaded, which I don't inherently dislike, but it doesn't match the CG rendered backdrops. So, he looks out of place, despite the familiar settings. The levels have choke points which break up the fluidity of the rest of the level, to task you with some difficult obstacle in order to reach the goal. A few of these are dexterity testing jumping sections, and their is even a puzzle involving torches. To me they feel out of place. Sonic obstacles should be about split-second choices, and these are not. I suppose they are there to break up the monotony, which they do, but not for anything worthwhile. All stages are open from the beginning except boss stages. Its kind of a Mega Man styled idea, and its not game breaking, but I'm not sure it adds anything. It works for Mega Man because the bosses are far more difficult and he acquired powers. In Sonic 4, I can only see this feature helping people farm lives from easier levels for more difficult ones. Speaking of, lives are worthless and should have been dropped. You are never at risk of running out, and you can save. Its no longer a relevant system, just a pointless nostalgic artifact they must have left to appease the core fanbase that hates them no matter what they do.

The Good:
Everything that made the old Sonic games good is back. They've also included some of the updates from the handheld 2D sonics, like Sonic's lock-on attack. Oh and you can save and there is a stage select.

Opinions Vary:
Tails and all other of Sonic's happy little friends are absent. I don't find this good or bad. I have nothing against Sonic's gang, at least the core group of Tails, Amy, and Knuckles. I dislike how they've been handled in the past, especially when it comes to voice acting and stories. But not as characters. Knuckles and Tails seem like odd ones to remove, since they were very much a part of Sonic 3. This feels more like a sequel to Sonic 1, with their unexplained absence.

There is also a complete lack of any story. Again, this reminds me move of Sonic 1. In Sonic 3, attempts were made to show some kind of progression. It was simple and vague, but it was there. I don't think they needed voice acting or cut scenes to fix this. Brief segments showing the characters interacting is all. Eggman attacking something, Sonic rolling in, and him running off. Bam, thats it.

I also wish Chaos made an appearance, but oh well.

Verdict: Thumbs Up

If you like Sonic games, you'll find this qualifies as such. Its fast and fun. Its not ground breaking or amazing, but its a nice little game. If you nostalgically liked Sonic, but now just play games to complain, I'm sure you'll find something about this game that will get you ranting all over the internet.

Task Manager [tip]

2010-10-13T08:45:00.002-05:00

If you are like me, and going by all forms of testing its fairly certain that you are not, then you use the Windows Task Manager a lot. Also, its pretty neat how its icon in the notification area shows the CPU usage.

Well, here is good way of setting it the task manager to launch directly when you load Windows.

The basics:

Locate the Startup folder for your User account, or for all user accounts depending on preference.
Create a shortcut to C:\Windows\System32\taskmgr.exe
Put the shortcut in the Startup folder and set shortcut to run minimized.
In the Task Manager's options, check hide when minimized.

A neat little way to keep one of the most handy programs always at arms length.

If you don't know how to do some of those things, or you are running into problems, I'll explain a bit further. First, open up your start menu and locate the startup folder. Right click it and explore all users. If that doesn't work on your version of Windows (I'm not sure what version it wouldn't work on... but anyways) just navigate to 'C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup' in Windows Explorer. If the folder doesn't exist, create it. If you are ever asked to give administrative privileges, do it. If your user account does not have administrative privileges or you only want the task manager to auto run for your account, you can try this folder instead: 'C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup'

Make sure to replace USERNAME with your user name. I cannot guarantee this will get you around the admin problems, but it should.

Anyways, whenever you get to whatever folder you are using, right click ON THE DESKTOP and go to New>Shortcut. If a wizard pops up, point the location of the shortcut to 'C:\Windows\System32\taskmgr.exe'.

Let me stop here and just say, if you have been paying attention you might have noticed what we are doing here. If you aren't paying attention, why the heck are you just randomly following this tutorial then? What if you get to the end and I say something like 'congrats mate, you've successfully installed computer AIDS.' I mean, that would be no fun. You'd have to call up all your friends that you've recently had LAN parties with and I'm sure it would be really awkward.

What was I talking about? Oh right. If you've been paying attention you should have noticed that this is just the standard procedure for making a program start automatically when Windows starts. If you want any other programs to also start automatically, toss their shortcuts into the startup folder. The first folder I listed will start it up for all users, and the second just for the specified user.

Anyways, to make this a bit nicer than just opening the task manager, right click that shortcut you made in the startup folder and go to properties. On the shortcut tab, click the drop down for Run, and select minimized. This way the program won't start up in the way every time Windows loads, which would be frustrating. Another thing that is frustrating is that the task manager takes up space in your start bar. To fix that, run the task manager. Under options, check "hide when minimized." Now the task manager will retreat to just the notification area on startup and whenever you don't need it.

If you are still having problems, you are either using a Mac or need to buy one ASAP. After you get one, ask people for help at a coffee shop.

If you are using Linux, make sure to post your opinion of Windows in the comments, because it is relevant and I care deeply.

At the Jazz Club

2010-10-06T04:12:00.006-05:00

Lets all just relax and hit play on both of these videos.

At. The. SAME. TIME.

For added ambiance, fullscreen this:

Habits & Plans II [Gaming]

2010-10-04T06:05:00.005-05:00

More Stuff I Do

Keeping up the post/year rate.

Playing:

Dead Rising 2
Random other things.

Finished Recently:

Very little. Been playing games sporadically.

Want to Play:

There is a lot I should play, but I haven't felt like playing much lately.

Anticipating (Not Released):

The Old Republic; PC.
A lot of others, but nothing is really gnawing at me right now.

Want to buy (Already released):

Starcraft II
--- Many things, but not enough to actually buy them.

I've been on VG hiatus lately. I'm still playing no less than two or more different games per day, but nothing extensively, and I haven't felt like getting anything new. Every random game twitch I get has faded away after a couple hours or so. Dead Rising 2 has not yet consumed me, as I just haven't been able to fully invest myself in it.

I played a bit of the Civilization V demo, which was pretty good, but nothing I'd buy. Makes me nostalgic for all those days as a child in which I didn't play Risk, except the one or two days in which I did. I was hoping it was more Sim City and less board game, but unfortunately that isn't the case. Probably for the best. Even though I didn't care for it and it was a demo, I still found myself losing track of hours in that game.

I guess this is just the way of things; my natural ebb and flow. One month, I play through ten games, the next I hardly play through one. Its disappointing sometimes, as with DR2, and several other titles. These are games that I found myself waking up daily to the disappointing realization that they were still not yet out. Only to finally make it to release day, and barely be capable of putting the disc in the damn tray.

Habits & Plans [Gaming]

2010-05-04T16:27:00.000-05:00

Updated - Completely changed.

Been ages since I have posted here, but oh well.

Playing:

Mass Effect; 360. Getting last achievement (character to level 60.)
Mass Effect 2; 360. Playing through two characters that I made with specific plot choices in the first game.
God of War Collection; PS3. Beginning of God of War 1 on Spartan.
God of War 3; PS3. I am a bit after the Hades boss fight, on Spartan difficulty.
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle; Wii. On the first boss.

Finished Recently:

Mass Effect; 360. Insanity Play-through.
Mass Effect 2; 360. Insanity Play-through.
Assassin's Creed II; 360. All DLC.
Final Fantasy XIII; PS3. Quit playing three-quarters of the way through.

Want to Play:

Prototype; 360. Just recently purchased.
Darksiders; PS3. Finish the game.
Red Faction Guerrilla; 360. Finish the game.
Ultimate Alliance 2; 360. Replay.
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time; PS3. Replay.
Shemue; DC. Replay.
Shemue II; XBOX. Never actually got around to playing this before. It is my shame.
Persona 4; PS2. Want to start this again. Couldn't properly get into it at the time. Was too busy.

Anticipating (Not Released):

Dead Rising 2; 360.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker; PSP.
Metal Gear Rising; PS3.
The Old Republic; PC.
--- Many things that have slipped my mind.

Want to buy (Already released):

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier; PS2.
New Super Mario Bro. Wii; Wii.
Red Steel 2; Wii.
White Knight Chronicles; PS3.
Yakuza 3; PS3.
God of War: Chains of Olympus; PSP.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops; PSP.
Sam & Max: Seasons One and Two; PC.

Resident Evil Series [No Nostalgia]

2009-10-09T20:21:00.003-05:00

Updated - Resident Evil 2 Gamecube Port Review

This is going to be a special kind of review series, which I will call "No Nostalgia" reviews. Let me explain.

I'm playing through the Resident Evil (Biohazard) series in the following order:

Resident Evil Gamecube Remake - Status: Review Completed
Resident Evil 2 Gamecube Port - Status: Review Completed
Resident Evil 3 Gamecube Port - Status: Game Completed, Review Not Written
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X on the Playstation 2 - Status: Game Completed, Review Not Written
Resident Evil Zero on the Gamecube - Status: Game Completed, Review Not Written
Resident Evil 4 on the Playstation 2 - Status: Currently Playing
Resident Evil 5 on the XBOX 360 - Status: Game Completed on Co-Op, Single Player Not Completed

After these, I'm thinking of playing the Wii Chronicles series (Umbrella Chronicles & Darkside Chronicles) but we shall see how it goes. I'm currently on Code Veronica, and I'm just about finished with the game. Aside from Resident Evil 4, I had not played through any of these games previously.

Now what is it I mean by "No Nostalgia?"

Full post contains further talky-talky.

I don't not have warm and fuzzy feelings about the games (or warm and terrified, as the case may be.) I'm going to be judging them (by them, I mean the previous generation RE games, not RE4 and RE5 which I consider contemporary games) without any nostalgia. I will try to take into account where they fall on the game time-line, and only make complaints based on things I think could have been improved at the time, and not in hind-sight.

Resident Evil 2 Gamecube Port [Reviews]

2009-10-09T19:41:00.003-05:00

Verdict: Thumbs Up

What I Played: I played through the game as Leon on Normal. I have not played through as Claire yet for the second scenario.

Review:
Well, this is the first foray of mine into the PS1 Resident Evils (even though I am playing the GC port, as its easier to find these days), aside from whatever I played of them as a young lad (measured in minutes, as they were rentals of my brother, not mine.) I really like this game a helluva a lot more than I expected to.

By this point I had gotten used to the silly controls of the series; which became apparent to me as I easily dodged the zombies fairly effortlessly. It also helps that you run a shit ton faster in this game. I did have a slow start, though it was mostly self-imposed. I kept doing the beginning gauntlet through the zombies over and over again, to get to the police station. Why? Because I was examining all of the corridors and trying to pick the best method before wasting a save ribbon. As I have learned, this is silly and pointless unless you are a perfectionist or are on a higher, un-lockable difficulty (as normal is the highest from the outset.) Save ribbons are plentiful, if you have any conservation skills what-so-ever.

Supplies are not as hard to find in this game. There is still a bit of scarcity, but if you are playing it like you played the Resident Evil Remake, then you will quickly find you have nice stockpiles of ammo and healing items ready for you to let loose. Again, this will happen as you progress past the beginning of the game as this game has just as slow of a start as all of the games pre-Resident Evil 4. Practice some good conservation in the beginning and the second half of the game will be gravy, or cake icing, whatever sets you off.

With added supplies comes much more combat. Zombies are found in large groups in halls you really need to clear out. This game features 5+ Zombies on screen at once, which adds quite a bit of blasting fun as compared to the 1-2 (or possibly 3?) in Resident Evil 1. Shotgun ammo is plentiful and super fun to use. You can clear a group in 2-3 shots with a bit of crowd control. Or pop a shot, and clear the rest with your pistol. Lickers are a newcomer, but are hardly an inconvenience if you make sure to care a loaded shotty at all times. Two pops and they don't lick nothing no mo's. Spiders are just as stupid and pointless of enemies in this game as in all of the RE games (except for Code Veronica.) Bad scripting cause them to be too slow on the walls and ceilings, and their aim with their venom spit is just terrible. Keep on trucking and you never will have to waste a shot on them in almost all of the RE games.

Bosses are big and scary, but strategies range from shooting, to dodging and shooting. You really shouldn't have to consult a walkthrough to tell you these things. They may take a bit of planning with inventory though, which will cause you to typically commit suicide on the first run through so as to come back prepared. Capcom does alright with giving nice save rooms before hand, stocked with crap you may need. So try to save when you come across a save room as a general rule (especially if its full of nice shit.)

I dig the concept of the 2 scenario idea. Basically how this works (because it took a bit of research for me to find this described in clear terms) is you pick whether you want to play the first scenario as Claire or Leon when you start the game. However you unlock a second scenario when you complete the game that you play as the character you did not choose the play the first scenario. You will then play as the opposite character, experiencing the events as played out in the first scenario, but from a different perspective. You also have different boss battles in this scenario, and have the Nemesis-like Mr. X chasing you from time to time. Several choices you make in the first scenario affect this scenario, opening doors, taking which items, things like that. I don't have a full list of them.

Its an interesting idea; however I wish they had just had you start as one character and then play the second scenario as the other character. I don't see the point of the character choice for the scenarios. It doesn't take anything away, but it doesn't add much either, aside for more work for Capcom. Oh well.

There isn't much I dislike about this game aside from things that I dislike about all of the RE Games. I still think controlling in RE is silly, and the inventory system is a big time waster, but nothing that breaks the game. Its great fun, and its very easy to see how this was the best selling of the series until RE5 came out. It has stood the test of time well. Now remake the damn thing, Capcom. I want pretty graphics too.

Resident Evil Gamecube Remake [Reviews]

2009-10-05T17:34:00.004-05:00

For the historical re-cord, I don't know what that says in Japanese. Probably something about how fucked they all are. Or how much they hate zombies. Or maybe Chris is explaining how in a few years he plans on eating steroid sandwiches as a replacement for all meals. Who cares. Before you ask, I'm pretty sure the screen is from Umbrella Chronicles and not the GC remake, but the assets look almost exactly the same, and this shows the main three guys (excluding Barry, who is a ding-bat and Rebecca Chambers who I know little about, having played the game through as Jill, and not yet played RE Zero.) Anywho, lets get this review started.

Verdict: Thumbs Up

What I Played: I played through the game as Jill on Easy (I know, I know; I'll explain why in the review.)

Full review in the full post.

Review:
OK, on my series post about RE, I said I never played any of the RE games aside from RE4, well this is a bit of a lie. I had played a few hours of RE1 on the PS1 on Normal or Hard (whatever is the harder difficulty that is unlocked from the get go.) I decided to stop playing it on the PS1 and play the GC version for better graphics and voice acting. I quickly discovered that the GC remake is much HARDER than the original. I decided to switch to Easy to alleviate my frustration, but it only did so much. I did eventually get into the swing of things, and I'm confident enough now to play the game again on a more difficult mode. However, I am preoccupied with completing the entire series at the moment, so replays will have to wait until after.

Why do I think the remake is harder? It is relevant to this review, because a big part of it, though not all of it, is because of bad design. The things that are not related to bad design: There seems to be less ammo even on easy in the remake, you seem to take more damage, zombies seem to take much less, and there are crimson heads to worry about (I'll get to these guys.) I could deal with these on their own, I have nothing against "hard" games. The biggest reason I found the remake harder is that it far less adept at letting you know what to do next. In fact, not only does it not offer good hints on where to go, it will constantly tell you to go to the WRONG place. If you are listening to the cut scenes, and follow this advice, you will waste much of your supplies investigating areas you don't even need to be in yet.

Let me give you an example. After the dining room area, which remains nearly identical to the original, you and Barry decide to split-up (always a good decision.) Barry tells you flat out that you should do these things: Check the right side of the mansion AND stay on the first floor as it is too easy to get lost. He says he will handle the left side, starting with the dining room. So where do you need to go to continue you the game? You need to go directly into the left side, through the dining room to as far left of the mansion as you can go, and then right up the stairs to the second floor. Yes, you must do exactly the opposite of what the game just told you to do if you wish to proceed. The area you are told to go is a dead end with a couple of semi-useful items and a zombie waiting to ambush you.

The game is littered with similar bad design choices and just an overall lack of direction. As you proceed in the game, this becomes less of a problem as you become familiar with the mansion and its outcroppings, however. This seems to be a staple of the RE series in general. The beginnings are always far more difficult than the later parts of the game. Supplies are more limited and you are always unsure as to where you should be going. It gives you a feeling of empowerment, like you are getting a handle on the situation. Montage music starts to play in your head.

Overall it fits with the mood of the game, but I still submit that games should get MORE difficult as you play them rather than less. More difficult enemies attempt to accomplish this, but its too little to late. When you have stored a huge cache of military grade weapons and know the corridors of the mansion like the back of your hand, you can either dodge these enemies or blow the shit out of them, should you feel like it.

Crimson head zombies were introduced to make the game harder, later. However this is a design that will only punish players that are already struggling. If the player is doing well, they are able to burn zombies to prevent them from becoming the very dangerous crimson heads. If the player is constantly low on supplies, lost, and having problems with inventory management, that is when they will not be burning the zombies, and they are really the ones who don't need an even greater difficulty. It seems to be a mechanic added solely to be a dick to poor players.

Inventory management is irritating, but I like the idea it presents. Because your space is limited, and you can only store items in the item box, items begin to feel like real things. You have to decide what to take and what to leave behind. Its something that is very significant in real life, especially, one would imagine, in a survival scenario. It isn't handled realistically, with differently sized items taking up the same amount of space, combining items lets them take up less inventory space (figure that out with your science), and all item boxes are meta-physically linked together, so that they all contain the same cache.

Speaking of items, ink ribbons are useless. I think they are limiting your saves, so that death is an even less liked outcome. While this is true, I think that is more accomplished by the lack of typewriters, not ink ribbons, which are overly abundant. Also, dying and starting over from a really long way back does anything but increase tension in the game. It makes you replay a section you already know, so you are no longer on edge, and it just makes you pissed off that you have to replay it in the first place. You are taken out of the experience until you finally manage to regain the spot you were at previously, and what if you die again at that same spot? It becomes a ridiculously frustrating process.

Overall, the game does offer the tension and survival situation feeling. Each new door will keep you on edge. You will dread running into some of the more devastating enemies, and its one of the few games where a flight or fight decision is always on your mind. Its short, but with two characters, several difficulties and extra modes it definitely has a ton of replay-ability. Being a newcomer to the series, it was really interesting to see what I had been missing, and I really wasn't disappointed. A lot of things about the game haven't aged well, but its still worth playing if you are like me and have shy'd away from the series until now.

Format Change

2009-10-05T17:04:00.003-05:00

Going to switch up the format on here. No more of my crazy political, religious, existential rants. Its a bit difficult for anyone to agree with my opinions on any one topic, much less several. So in an effort to make this blog more readable, should anyone choose to read it, I'm going to focus primarily on video games. I may start new blogs on other topics, I'm still deciding. We'll see how it goes. Still. Just video games here. Cool?

Nothing else is in the full post, by the way.

Musings On Truth

2009-09-16T08:08:00.004-05:00

Some preface: I have been doing a lot of thinking about just about everything for the last several months. I'm not discussing those here, but just the processes I have been going through to root out my own misconceptions. I'm trying to "cleanse" my mind, I guess. Try to see things as they are, and not how I've come to see them over the years. Its difficult, so these are just my musings on the process and pitfalls. I will probably write more of these.

I've been searching for truth. Not a spiritual truth, because I don't know what “spiritual” means, besides “buy my pointless crap.” Just truth. Truth of my own ideas and opinions. The truth that can be found about the world. Any truth, really.

So far, I've mainly just found the pitfalls that make this kind of truth difficult to find. A lot, if not all, of these pitfalls are different aspects of just being human. Some of them might be more prevalent in men, I can't say. I don't know how women think anymore than I know how other men think. Lets just say they are aspects of being me. If they sound familiar, they may just be aspects of you as well.

First off, it is difficult to distance myself from my opinions and ideas. I often find in conversation and argument I will defend my opinions fervently. Opinions I might not even care much about. It seems to stem, at a root level, from a fear of being wrong. I guess this could be an evolutionary thing; not wanting to show weakness. However, it is no longer a good feature of mankind; or perhaps just of myself.

Lately I have been re-evaluating such long held opinions, and I don't even remember how I came to believe a lot of them. I must have heard them as a child, and just held them as truth since then. At every impasse, I was too caught up in winning the argument over these opinions, I never for a moment considered I might be basing my ideas on misconceptions from long ago.

This leads into another pitfall; rationalization. I obviously can't defend such opinions with the reasons I came to believe them; since I don't even know what those were. Humans, or perhaps just myself, are creative creatures though. When I am faced with evidence contrary to my beliefs, I'm quite able to rationalize reasons out of thin air to combat any counter-point. Looking back on these, they don't always make sense. Which can only lead me to believe that my mind overlooks how absurd these rationalizations are, just because it doesn't want to accept that I have been living my life based on false precepts.

Opinions are, from my personal observation, largely social devices for most. This causes a whole slew of socially related pitfalls when it comes to knowing what it is you truly like or dislike. If we take up opinions in the search for social acceptance, how do you know what it is you actually like, and what you liked just to gain some sort of common ground between yourself and peers. I find myself looking far less for social acceptance than most, especially now, but these concepts have still affected my life and mind.

I remember, sometime during middle school, my classmates suddenly started to develop music tastes. I had no personal music tastes at the time, that I can remember. None set in stone, anyways. I remember going to my first school dance, hearing the music the kids seemed to really react to. I had no real opinion of it, but I downloaded it when I got home. Over the next few days, I found myself singing a long to it.

I don't think this is a rare occurrence, but I could be wrong. What it says to me, is that I had a blank musical opinion slate. I found other people liked a certain type of music. Being middle school, I was quite desperate to fit in, so I figured this was a way to develop some sort of commonality. I thought to myself: if they like this music it must be good, so I should like it to. I believed this so much, that I eventually did like the music.

Sometime later in middle school I began to find myself fitting into a certain kind of social identity, the rebel. Around this time I began to dislike the status quo. I thought of those that liked the popular music, and other popular things, as being sheep. My tastes turned to more alternative styles in all things. I was constantly avoiding the opinions of the general public. This stage continued through most of high school.

This may seem like an entirely different thought process than those that attempt to fit in, but after living this I can tell you that they are one and the same. I don't remember exactly when, but I began to find that there were those that were on the fringe of the social circles. Engaging with them, the common ground just switches from the popular to the unpopular. I convinced myself that the popular opinion was inherently negative. I rationalized this with common viewpoints on the subject; such as the lack of creativity in popular media or that people follow popular opinion just to be part of the group. Ironically, I was purposely disliking popular media to just fit in with a different group.

These thought processes are still applicable outside of the social circles of teenagers. Especially because unless the opinions and ideas formed during this time period are re-evaluated, they form the basis of your mindset in your adult life. Not to mention that such social circles do not ever disappear. In fact some social interactions become more influential in adult life, such as dating.

To be continued, possibly.

The Last Remnant

2009-07-30T18:52:00.004-05:00

Verdict: Thumbs Down

What Did I Play?: I played maybe thirty minutes of the game on the Xbox 360. There were some cut scenes, then a large battle in which I had no fucking clue what I was doing. Then there were more cut scenes. Then there were some tutorials. I walked around a bit. I fought a pseudo-boss which you can't damage. Then there were some more cut scenes. Then I shouted "fuck this!" to myself, and stopped playing.

Full review after the jump.

Graphics: The graphics are bad. The game was made on the Unreal Engine, kind of an odd choice for Square Enix. No idea how they fucked up the Unreal Engine so bad. Textures pop in randomly and the frame rate drops constantly, and for an Unreal Engine game the poly count is really low and the textures look low-res so I can't imagine why they are having these troubles. Characters look bland. Standard J-Pop styled nonsensical clothing for warriors and shit. In some games the art is so good you can forgive this, but in The Last Remnant that isn't the case. Environments are empty, even more so during combat. Its the kind of thing that wasn't forgivable on the PS2 and certainly looks worse these days. Animation is shitty. The run cycle for the protagonist looks like ass, and its something you are going to have to sit there and watch for most of the game so that is really not forgivable.

Overall, this is a terrible looking game in ever aspect.

Sound: Sound didn't leave enough of an impression on me to notice. It might have been great. Either way, it didn't change what I ultimately think of the game.
The voice acting is horrible. Worse than the dubbing of most anime, and that is saying something.

Story: So there is this war going on... and like this kid, who lives right next to where it is happening, doesn't know about it somehow. He's looking for his sister who was taken by monsters, and runs out of a forest into a scene from the J-Rock version of "Braveheart." Like a fucking idiot, he runs through the battle, trips and him and this bitchy girl fall down this hole after this Pop singer prince dude fires a weapon made from a remnant, which is some ancient power thing. They fall down a cave, and the girl bitches at the guy for like twenty minutes, and even though the main character is a total douche, you start to think "What the fuck?" He didn't even really do anything and she is bitching him out, calling him a spy (for some reason.. I guess everyone you don't instantly recognize must be a spy, right?) Anyways, they decide to work together to get out of the cave, instead of one running off on their own and giving the other the finger (as it would happen in real-life.) In a battle the main character turns out to have super powers for no reason. They meet that douche prince from the battle and then they leave.

I have no idea how the story ends, and I don't give a shit. I'm guessing that the main character rises to the occasion, and beats some dark force and him and the bitchy girl bang during the credits after she realizes he has a wiener after all. That's my best guess.

If that all sounds like something you would like, than the story is excellent. Otherwise, it's shit.

Gameplay: You run around like an RPG half the time, the other half the time you are in battle. The battles are boring. You control a lot more characters than a final fantasy, but you have much less control over them. You only have three options, really. Attack, attack with super moves, attack with magic. AKA, there is no strategy to this game. You grind your level until it doesn't matter what button you hit during battle. Its horrid. Why anyone would play this I don't know. If you like RPG's you won't like this game. If you like RTS's you won't like this game. You could stick the controller up your ass during battle and do jumping jacks, it really doesn't fucking matter to the outcome of the battle. I suggest using this game to test for mental disorders.

Overall: Don't buy or rent or play this game at all. Stay as far away from it as possible. There are so many better games you could be playing instead of it. Like, I don't know, seeing how many times you can kick yourself in the dick in an hour and then trying to beat that score.

Things I Don't Like Should Be Illegal

2009-07-23T13:17:00.004-05:00

I don't understand the philosophy of any attempt of censorship. Video Games in particular receive a lot of flak, because of the "parent" mentality that video games are only played by children. Despite that not being true, and children not even being the average video game player these days, I still don't understand it. If you don't want a kid to play a video game... don't get him the video game. Its really the glory of capitalism, you know. We can choose what we want to buy or not buy. Children have no income of their own, no easy mode of self-transportation, and cannot buy M-rated games on their own because of strictly enforced (more so than theaters) retail rules. It is not illegal to sell M-rated games to children (or tickets to R-rated movies for that matter), but there are no respectable retail chains that do. I am visibly older than 18, and constantly asked to show ID for M-rated games. So really, the only way a kid is getting a violent game, or really any game, is through their parents or guardians.

Tad bit more, after the jump.

So why do parents care what kind of games are legal to be made? Why do they care more about M-Rated video games than say... R-rated movies like the Saw series that are far more violent than anything I have seen in a video game? Why does anyone care at all about things they don't have to buy if they don't want to?

You take away any freedom, it doesn't matter how "evil" of a freedom it seems to be, you start a chain reaction that leads to mob-rule. As time goes on, the mob is ruled by a few, with most of the mob too scared to disagree. That's when you realize how stupid it was to limit the power of those with unpopular ideas from speaking out.

Red Faction: Guerilla

2009-07-20T04:33:00.003-05:00

Verdict: Thumbs Down

Playing this game was kind of like getting shot at with a shotgun full of "fun shells" from 50 meters away; every once in awhile you might randomly get hit but its not worth standing around for.

The Girl Gamer

2009-07-20T03:50:00.005-05:00

Let me start this off by saying that I hate the phrase "girl gamer" as much as I hate attaching similar qualifiers of gender and race to things that have nothing to do with gender and race. You can be a girl and a gamer. Those parts of you are not related by any means. These type of labels, often self-imposed, lead to further sexism and racism. This might lead you to wonder why its politically correct to refer to some types of Americans like this: African-American, Asian-American, ect. Not sure when being American had anything to do with your previous ancestry. Getting back to the topic at hand though, Kotaku (link) recently put up a link talking about how we (from the language in the quote, I'm assuming the author mostly means male gamers by this) need to take women gamers off of this pedestal we have them on. I guess some men have the self-titled "girl gamers" on a pedestal, as opposed to being completely irritated by them. Anyways, I don't really disagree, but that's not really where the problem lies.

There are a lot of girls out there that are not gamers, but sell themselves as such. They play a game or two rarely, and talk about the experience to guys constantly. Its not a new strategy of meeting guys. Girls fake interest in sports for the same result. Not all girls are like this. Not all girls that play games are like this. The loud girls on XBOX Live yelling about how they are gamers, girls, and how they game all the time, are who I mean. I find it irritating and illogical, because I've never really found gaming to be a turn on. I mean seriously, gamers are loud, lazy, and obnoxious; I know I am. Still, the point is that its mostly these girls that try to keep this "girl gamer" thing alive and give women that play video games a bad rep. Men aren't blameless, but every time sexism exists it seems to be the men's fault even if its partly being propagated by women. Its always sounded a bit sexist to instantly point the blame at an entire gender to me.

Pic of Samus included because Samus is awesome. She is also one of the greatest women in gaming, without having to flaunt the fact that she is a woman all the time.

inFAMOUS v. Prototype

2009-07-16T22:16:00.003-05:00

Let me first say that I'm going to call "inFAMOUS" just Infamous from now on. I can't keep up with that stupid capitalization. Also, I have no idea why I picked that picture for this.

Infamous and Prototype are two open world, third person action games that star roughly similar looking characters with super powers. They also were released at about the same time. Infamous was a PS3 exclusive, and Prototype was released on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Holy shit, Prototype won in sales. Who'd have guessed it. Pretty much anyone with a brain, but it seems to be big news on a few gaming sites.

Although Infamous received the better ratings overall, Prototype was reviewed pretty decently as well. It has the multiplatform "thing" going for it too, one of those platforms being the 360 which has a much larger install base than the PS3. It also has more word of mouth advertising. Both PS3 and 360 gamers had been talking about Prototype, and waiting for it to come out. So those gamers that are part of this community, who happen to have a PS3, were probably more likely to be interested in Prototype than Infamous because their friends were.

Why then did Infamous beat Prototype on the PS3? I was wondering this myself, but I think the answer might be a bit more complicated than the numbers. The PS3 came out second. Its also the weaker selling of the two consoles. Its also considered fairly expensive. Although I would disagree that it is more expensive when looking at the big picture, how expensive it appears to be is what affects it sales. So the people who would buy a PS3 are those that don't care much about this. These would be the "hardcore" gamers, and those who don't have much of a budget issue when it comes to video games. Basically I'm saying, those that own a PS3 are more likely to own another console than those that own any other console. I have read stats pointing to this (I don't feel like looking them), but it also just makes some logical sense. When you look at it this way, those that own both a PS3 and a 360 I think were more likely to be influenced by word of mouth to get Prototype over Infamous. They may have gotten it on the 360 because of achievements, or because that's just the console they heard the most buzz about it for or because they knew other people doing that and didn't want to be different. You know how much people hate being different.

Another thought is that if you combine the PS3 sales of prototype with the sales of Infamous they are fairly close to the 360 sales of Prototype. Maybe just the same amount of people on both consoles wanted to play that kind of game, and more of those with a choice chose Infamous, and those on the 360 didn't really have the option to choose.

Its a weird case study for those developers with the option of going multiplatform.

A Methaphor for Evolution

2009-07-15T09:49:00.007-05:00

Here be science discussion. If that be something you are uninterested in, turn back now.

Anywho, Evolution is kind of an odd topic for this blog, I'll admit. I am quite the science dork, however, and Evolution has to be a topic people want to argue about most. It is kind of old news though, and is widely accepted by the scientific community. In fact, entire fields are based on it that shouldn't be producing results (but are) were the theory of Evolution a bunch of hogwash. Still, you can't mention the word without an argument. In my personal "discussions" I have found that this stems largely from a complete ignorance of what Evolution actually is by those that fervently argue it is bullshit. I have even had people defend their inaccurate understanding of Evolution when I have tried to correct them. These very same people will admit that they have not studied the subject, and only understand it from hearsay. Given, people that talk to me about Evolution is far from a fair sample of all detractors, but for those that don't quite understand the process I have thought of a fairly basic metaphor.

First lets talk about what seems to be the improper understanding of Evolution by many. I have heard Evolution described as a "force" of nature. A species encounters a change in environment, and Evolution takes to the scene and the species changes to adapt to the environment. Some also think of it simply as a force that drive the "advancement" of a species. Making less sophisticated species more like humans, and eventually advancing humans intelligence and sophistication.

These are the main erroneous ideas, and its not hard to figure out why people would think these. I mean this is how Evolution is often explained in classrooms or on television. Both are incorrect.

First lets get rid of the idea that Evolution is something. Evolution is only a word. It is not a force of nature. It does not exist. It is an abstract idea. Its a word that indicates a naturally occurring process. This is a process that happens with more than just species. That's where this metaphor comes in. Evolution even happens with language, in fact the process is far more quick with language.

There are a few things you need for the process of Evolution to exist. The first is iterations. With species, that is our generations. With language, you can think of a word as a species. So the word "hat" would be like Zebras, and the iterations of "hat" are each time its spoken, rather than generations like with Zebras. The next thing you need for Evolution, is randomization. Species get this from DNA. Although DNA is mostly sequenced based on heredity, the process is far from perfect and can result in abnormalities. This is the randomization that Evolution needs. For language randomization comes from the speaker. No one says the word exactly the same each time and no one says it exactly the same as other people. This is far more random than abnormalities in DNA, which is why language changes so much faster. The final thing you need, for basic Evolution, is a measure of success. Without this, species and language would have quickly descended into chaos, as all randomizations would carry on. However, each has a measure of success. With species this is simply the iterations ability to reproduce. The DNA of that iteration is carried on when it reproduces to the next generation. If the abnormality helps that particular animal reproduce more successfully than others of its species, it will reproduce more, pass its randomization through DNA to more iterations than those without it. An example of this could be something like a digit on a hand being offset from the others, such as the human opposable thumb. This would allow that species to grasp objects better, making gathering of food far easier than those without. Their chance to survive increases because of this, and so does their chance to mate (because they will live longer). It also means less food for those without this feature, which will only increase the spread of it to future generations. With language the success of an iteration is the further use of it. Iterations of words do not have to pass directly down a tree, so they are not limited by generations. If someone decides that "What's up?" takes too long to say, and shortens it to "Waddup?" This can spread instantly to hundreds of subsequent iterations by many speakers. The word can further be changed by other speakers to "Wazzup?" and continue in this degradation. However, you will note that the creation of these new "species" descendant of "What's Up?" does not necessarily mean the extinction of its ancestors. This is true of biological evolution as well. It is more true of language because words do not depend on as scarce of resources as species. The only resource words need is speakers. Speakers can be limited by geography, however. Language can only travel so quickly across distances. This has become much faster, which has lead to the slowing of language's evolution (as well as standardized dictionaries, but that is not a common thread language has with species). However, before telephones and the internet, this geographical isolation limited the languages resources, leading to far more radical changes with each iteration. Lack of outside interference of other language "species" also lead to words in one speaker pool to be completely different than those in another speaker pool, creating different languages. In species this can be seen in the different species of bird of paradise in Papua New Guinea, and how much they have evolved in their isolated environment. This is also the process that more commonly creates location specific iterations of animals. Such as the differences between various species of cats in the world that are cut of from one another geographically.

This is a very, very simplistic run down of the process of Evolution, but I hope it is a far more understandable than the way they teach it in elementary.

As for Creationism: If you want to believe it, go nuts. However, it has nothing to do with science, and no one has any evidence to the contrary. None that say different have bothered to present any proper scientific findings to the scientific community for scrutiny. It is entirely reliant on your faith. Teach it in churches and private schools if you want, but keep it out of public schools.

Bioshock & Bullshit

2009-07-10T18:48:00.008-05:00

A guess one post a year is a good post rate; amirite?

What is... happening, folks? Fall is upon us again! And with it! GAMES! Hoo-rah. But lets not talk about that. No, oh, not quite yet. We need to catch up. I need to know "How you feelin'?" OK, no I don't. I don't actually give a shit. Partially because you don't exist and I'm only typing as if talking to someone as a device to help my thought process, but! I digress. Lets jump, for old times sake:

Nostalgia has such a nostalgic feeling, I've always thought. "I feel like I have felt like I have felt something before," no? Fairly no-stal-gic writing on my "blag." Not about games though, so that is a bit off. I could talk about Bioshock 2? But its like, big daddy big drill big sisters; andyoucanreadallofthatsomeplaceelse. This site is supposed to offer a more... personal touch. "I'm super, super excited about Bioshock 2, you guises!" ... I don't think that exactly qualifies as an interesting post. But I am. If you want to know what I'm excited about, eat for breakfast, and when I take my bowel movements, check out this site called twitter, and never come back here again. Little of value will be lost. Well, I guess that is a bit harsh. Here's some games I'm looking forward to:

Bioshock 2, Uncharted 2, Beatles Rock Band, Darksiders: Wrath of War, Ratched & Clank Future 2: A Crank in Time, Ass Creed 2, and like a few hundred other games.

I get up at 4PM, so I don't eat breakfast, and my bowel was shot and killed in Vietnam.

This am useful post.

The Fall of... Too Many Games/My Sanity

2008-11-06T18:32:00.005-06:00

Their are seriously too many releases this Fall. I'm not sure if it is as bad as last year. Last year was BAD. Its hard to say. I think, for me, last year was the Fall of the PS3, and I don't mean downfall. I'm the only one who see's it as such. Well, I'm one of the few. This year seems far more even. I probably am looking forward to more non-exclusive titles than anything. Though, I'm looking forward to exclusive titles MORE, but still. If any console is taking the crown this year, it might be the 360. Hard to say. A lot of the "360" games I'm looking forward to are not "360" games, but games I'm not buying on the PC, because I don't feel like it. The Wii is almost entirely absent. The PS3 has had an awesome showing. Well. Lets jump this shit before I talk more about the games I care about.

Ok, multi-plats: Fracture, Dead Space, Spiderman: Web of Shadows, Farcry 2, Fallout 3, Legendary: The Box (although, less so), Mirror's Edge, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Left 4 Dead, Prince of Persia Prodigy, and Sonic Unleashed (unsure, but hopeful.)

Well.. Damn. Thats a lot of multi-plats. Fracture has dropped pretty low on the list since playing a demo of it, but I'm still interested in it. Plus, hey, I met a few of the guys that worked on it. So I almost have to check it out. I almost like it more for the technology than the actual game. Take that game and smash it together with the new Red Faction and you have physics porn. I'd play that shit all day just to blow shit up. I can't fucking wait until they can get a machine to handle that. Legendary: The Box I almost completely don't care about, but I did for a little bit, so I left it on the list. Whatever. Sonic Unleashed! Yeah. I know I'm one of the few with high hopes for this game. I know its going to break my heart, but just let me have this time. This time prior to its release where I can't fantasize about its greatness, and its reviving of SEGA to its former glory. You know, until I play it, and find out its just as shitty as all of the other Sonic games lately, handleheld games not included.

PS3 games: Little Big Planet & Resistance 2.

Only two, but damn. These are probably going to take up a shitload of my time, and I already own them both. I need to stop writing this shit and go play them. Oh, and I just got a beta key for Killzone 2, fuck. Where am I going to find the time for all this shit.

360: Fable 2 & Gears of War 2.

Pretty much the same as what I just said. Holy shit has Fable 2 been consuming my life. When I get Gears of War 2 there will be no saving me.

Someone send me some money for all this shit.

Word of the Day: Patina

2008-05-31T02:34:00.029-05:00

patina \PAT-n-uh; puh-TEEN-uh\, noun:
1. The color or incrustation which age gives to works of art; especially, the green rust which covers ancient bronzes, coins, and medals.
2. The sheen on any surface, produced by age and use.
3. An appearance or aura produced by habit, practice, or use.
4. A superficial layer or exterior.

[The ship] was sleek and black, her decks scrubbed smooth with holystones, her deckhouses glistening with the yellowed patina of old varnish.-- Gary Kinder, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea

So, I don't know about you... but I've never heard this word come up. Ever. Not even at some fucking smart school. Like Harvard. Or Yale. Not that that bothers me, but I'm telling you right now the dictionary is full of useless, shit-filled words that beg me to review them and just trash them to shit.

I suppose it's supposed to be a synonym of the sorts for a shine on something. Or sheen, as the author of this word would describe it. Again, these fucking people making up fucking shit words. I'm getting aggravated. Sheen? What the fuck is that... all I'm getting is some sort of way of referring to the family of actors. You know... Charlie... Martin... those are basically the only ones who matter.
I'm getting a kick out of the example I chose. Mind you, there were several but this one stood out the most. Why? Here, I'll show you.

[The cock] was sleek and black, her dicks scrubbed smooth with testicles, her dickholes glistening with the yellowed patina of old phalli.-- Gary Kinder, Ship of Dicks in the Deep Blue Cock

See what I did there? I changed the words. This is what Mr. Kinder was really thinking when he wrote this passage. I know this shit. I'm fucking aware. That's what he gets for messing with the WORD OF THE FUCKING DAY. That's my fucking department. He can't touch that shit.

Basically, I'm telling you that this word, this FUCKING word, pastina, is what it describes: superficial. Fake. Not real. Lies. Bullshit. See where I'm going? Do yourself a favor... stay away from the word of the day today. Probably tomorrow's too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

POLL RESULTS IN: PEOPLE DEMAND "COCKTHRISTY"

2008-05-19T01:15:00.003-05:00

U.S. President Bush Delivering Speech On "Cockthirsty" Epidemic

Scientists are pointing to a recent study conducted on the web page "A Big Mastodon," which has apparently discovered something SHOCKING. All this and more at 11.

And... We're back. Its seems a recent study, comprised of a thorough sample size of three people, has shown that the world is utterly obsessed with "Cockthirsty." Scientists have conducted several follow-up experiments, but it is as of yet unknown what "Cockthirsty" is.

U.S. politicians believe it to refer to a new kind of WMD and are taking "every necessary precaution."

I don't know about you, but I'll sleeping just a little less soundly tonight. Back to you, Tom.

Sonic Uncensored

2008-04-28T07:10:00.003-05:00

I've mentioned before that I'm quite the Sonic, and Sega, fanboy at heart. Though they have both lost their way and torment me so, I have lingering hope that one day they will rise again. Well, perhaps I wouldn't call myself a fanboy, per se, but with my age, and my families' console choices when I was a child, I was raised on the Sega Genesis far more than any Nintendo product like those a few years older than me. I have a sort of... nostalgic gravitation towards the company, that this "new Sega" has all but severed. Despite all of their transgressions, there remains a slim hope for Sonic and his pals to reclaim their rightful spot in the world of video games. Rather I should say, there are two slim hopes.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, as it is so lengthily titled, I have kept my eye on since it was first whispered about. A Sonic RPG? Ridiculous no? Then I learn it is being handled by Bioware... creators of Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, and Baulder's Gate... I can't think of a game Bioware has worked on that I don't like. They are a master of interactive storytelling. I don't think the company is infallible, huge design flaws in the games I have mentioned are proof to that, but their games have always been downright enjoyable despite any problems with them. Mario RPG is the game I look to as a way to explain to people how this can work, because despite Bioware's involvement, most people find it hard to trust anything with Sonic's name on it nowadays. Mario RPG was worked on by Square, and did a great job of meshing a simplified turn-based combat system with a few gameplay aspects from the Mario universe, and made it work surprisingly well. I don't think its hard to see how its possible to do the same with the Sonic universe. This will also be one of the first games to give us an in depth look into Sonic's world, and with Bioware doing the storytelling... I'm very interested to see what kind of world they have fleshed out for him. The only thing that is keeping me cautious about this game is that, being a small DS title, it will probably be worked on by a small team at Bioware, most likely by less experienced employees. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. I have faith in Bioware to put out a great game, even if I don't have the same faith in Sonic Team and Sega, which leads me to the other glimmer of hope for Sonic.

Sonic Unleashed had a leaked video appear not to long ago, leading to Sega just going and announcing the title. Its another 3d affair, scheduled for the 360, PS3, and Wii... which throws off warning lights right away. The game seems to blend 2D gameplay sections into the game, giving it the feel of the old side-scroller Sonics of yesteryear, and his outings on the handhelds... like that of Sonic Rivals. There is still "3D gameplay" to be had though. The hopeful things about this game are the fact that Sonic Team is working on this one, as opposed to the horrendous Sonic the Hedgehog for the 360 and PS3, and the early video LOOKS beautiful, both graphically and gameplay wise. Looks can be deceiving though, and their are still a lot of things keeping me from dropping my cautious optimism. Mainly: At night apparently Sonic transforms into some kind of beast mode... yeah. Aside from making me say out loud: What the FUCK? This is an overused way to attempt to regain interest in a series that has fallen from grace... an overused attempt that almost never works. It doesn't, however, imply in any way that the game will be BAD, its just a sign that... shit, look out. Don't count on this game to be the messiah until you fucking play it. The other problem I have is with the art style... Its jarring. Sonic games seem to try for cartoony main characters in a realistic world with realistic people (although no people have been shown yet, to my knowledge.) Why? I have no idea. Visually, it looks silly. It just seems like they are trying to show off graphics but neglected to ask themselves what kind of graphics make sense to the fucking game. This type of an oversight is not a good sign in my eyes. The other, main thing to be cautious about is... it doesn't matter how good it LOOKS, Sega's problem has been with glitches, terrible engine performance, shitty controls, and horrible storylines. How the game looks after 20 minutes of loading might be fantastic, but if the controls are shit, it loads forever every 20 seconds, has a storyline that is intelligible, and randomly crashes... then who cares how good the short videos and screenshots "look." This is definitely a game to keep your eye on if you are a Sonic fan... but don't drop your cautious optimism on any Sonic game until after you have played it.

Littering Isn't Bad For the Environment If Done Indoors

2008-04-12T17:30:00.002-05:00

Like seriously, it isn't.

Scientists... like... totally proved it, and everything.

Kingdom Hearts

2008-03-30T14:31:00.002-05:00

Verdict: Thumbs Up

I'm going to try out this "Verdict" thing, instead of "Rating." I think its catchier.

This is going to be a pretty quick review, compared to normal. Mainly because I've already talked a bunch about the game in my notes (note 1, note 2,) but also because I haven't played the game for at least two weeks. Hit the jump for the review.

So in Kingdom Hearts you play this little douchebag named Sora who lives on this stupid island with his dumb friends and some random Final Fantasy characters. Sora and his little friends are original characters for the game, designed by the games director (who happens to be the character designer for most of the recent Final Fantasy games.) Them, as well as all of the original characters, seem to be a mixture of Final Fantasy and Disney styles, which is fitting. All of the returning Final Fantasy characters have been altered to fit the Disney worlds as well. Off topic: I wish some Final Fantasy themed worlds would have made an appearance. This seems more like a Disney game with Final Fantasy cameos, than a 50/50 mix and mash of both.

Anyways, the storyline is about what you would expect from Square and Disney. Its well told, pushes moral values on you (mostly dealing with friendship and growing up, obvious thematic choices for a role playing game in which you travel in a party and characters level up,) and it is quite epic. I liked it, no buts. If you like Final Fantasy, you probable will too, even if you don't like Disney that much. Disney fans will probably also be able to get into it, since it borrows a lot from Disney's methods of storytelling. The addition of Disney characters running around will be your icing on the cake.
The gameplay is alright. I like where it was going, but its not all the way there. The RPG elements are simplified to make it more approachable to those jumping into the game because of the Disney logo, and it works. Its a system that is simple if you don't want to mess with it, but in depth enough to satisfy the RPG veteran. The "action" elements and "platforming" elements are where the game struggles. The camera is terrible. This should come as no surprise to those familiar with Square. They can't make camera controls to save their lives. This makes jumping sections (which there are thankfully few of) and bosses require lots of energy devoted to manually controlling the camera. This is ridiculously tedious. The AI for Goofy and Donald can be altered a bit, with a predecessor to the Gambit system in FFXII which is unnamed. This works mildly well... eventually. Near the end of the game, when they have spells to trade mana, and heal on another, it works fine. In the beginning, they help little and run to their deaths most of the time, and there is little reason to waste your potions or mana to save them. For their intended purposes, it works. It doesn't work well, but it works.

Ok, thats all well and good, but this is the reason this game infuriates me. You can't skip cut scenes, and if you die on a boss you have to watch the cut scene over again before you fight it. On extreme mode, this drains you patience. This is the most annoying thing in the world. I almost wanted to give the game a Thumbs Down just because of this. Alright, Developers listen up. I'm only going to say this once (or perhaps several times): NEVER FUCKING MAKE YOUR PLAYER ENDURE STUPID SHIT THEY HAVE ALREADY SEEN OVER AND FUCKING OVER AGAIN.

Kind of unorganized this time, but whatever. Review over.

The World of Phantasy Hearts

2008-03-20T18:52:00.005-05:00

I'm playing three games right now, all of which are awesome, and I have played before. World of Warcraft, Phantasy Star Online (Blue Burst), and Kingdom Hearts. Its quite an odd combo, I'd say. Well, not necessarily. I'll explore this idea... after the "jump."

All three of these games rank somewhere high in my "Unwritten List of Games that I Really Like." At first they seem to hold little in common, but then I noticed that one ties to the next, which ties to the other. Let me explain.

Phantasy Star Online was the first of the three I played, not long after the release of Version 1 on the Dreamcast. Infact, this was when I was reading the official Dreamcast magazine and anxiously awaiting its release. I was, and still am, quite the Dreamcast fan-boy, and an ex-Sega and Sonic fan-boy (although I really wish they would do a "reunion tour.") I played that game longer than any I had played up until that point. This was during middle school or so. Its probably the game that made me consider myself a "hardcore gamer," (along with Tribes 2, which I played somewhere around this period in my life as well) although I'm sure others considered me that beforehand. So obviously, the game holds a lot of nostalgia value with me, of Sega, the Dreamcast, middle school, and the summer that I was hooked on the game.

Kingdom Hearts I played much later, the last of the three. If you compare the game to PSO, its not hard to see why I would like both. They are both hybridizations of the action and RPG genres, but just went in different directions. PSO focuses more on the online format of some RPGs, while Kingdom Hearts tries to tell a "heart-warming" and epic storyline, like its Final Fantasy brethren. I like both of these types of RPGs, even without the added action elements, but those simply seal the deal. These two games represent to me a more and more emerging hybrid action-RPG genre, that I believe will come into its own over the next decade or so. We have already seen many games like this, but so far the genre has not surpassed the sum of its parts. Games like Fable, and its coming sequel, are a push in the right direction though (if "Peter" could live up to half of his boasts, we might already be there. Ha ha... ha.)

How do these games bridge with World of Warcraft? Thats what I believe has yet to be seen. PSO has elements of a MMORPG and an action-RPG, but manages to be neither. What attracted me initially to PSO, aside from the game itself, was its potential to expand the new ground it was exploring. Unfortunately with the fall of Sega after the failing of the Dreamcast (which I blame on every one of you,) I doubt any PSO sequels are going to do little more than rehash the formula already created (as proven with Phantasy Star Universe.)

So it will fall to another developer with another IP (intellectual property.) A game with more action "flow" than PSO, and more MMORPG exploration and customization, would be a living, breathing world of endless possibilities. Its something that I wish I could work on. A pie-in-the-sky idea I have had for years. Whats amazing is that we haven't seen anything like it yet. Just endless WoW copycats, that don't even copy it very well.

Somehow they expect gamers to chose their experience over the vastly superior one that already exists. Well, you have to beat it at its own game, or set yourself apart, not half-ass the same formula. The MMO market doesn't work like that.

Image created with Photoshop by me, using a few sources from Google Image. I obviously don't own World of Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, or Phantasy Star Online, nor do I claim to.

Politics

2008-03-18T14:56:00.003-05:00

Is there anything worse than Politics? Seriously. I'm neither Republican nor Democrat, they're both morons. Times change faster than our Politicians. A lot faster. I don't mean the length of their terms, I'm talking about their ideas. The views represented in Politics are those of a generation that has passed, and we are applying them to modern problems. Is it any wonder why this doesn't work?

I'm not sure their is anywhere to place the blame, though. I guess younger generations are underrepresented because of lower voter turn out, and we only have ourselves to blame for that. Then again, election after election I hear people in their mid-20s saying they don't vote because they don't feel represented. So its a cyclical problem.

I apologize for the lack of humor (and swearing) in this post. I will try harder next time.

Image from this site. Another silly dress-up thing.

On Friends, and Values (of 'Hotness')

2008-03-18T04:26:00.005-05:00

I'm happy you think that DZ.

Really, I am.

Picture from here.

What If I Said...

2008-03-18T03:55:00.000-05:00

HEY AARON.

Your new friend is hot.

Kingdom Hearts: Notes: The SEQUEL

2008-03-13T17:23:00.011-05:00

Sweet, double colon posts (see: title.) This still isn't my Kingdom Hearts review. I know you are excited as shit about that. Don't worry. It's coming. Soon. Just hold your fucking horses. Damn it.

Anyways. I'm going to try to keep this short. No, I mean, for real this time. I'm not going to say that, and then end up writing 8 pages. Well, I might. I'll try not to though.

So I was playing some more Kingdom Hearts today, and I believe it has been affected by the RPG SYNDROME, because it has been getting a lot easier the more I play it. It seems to always happen with RPGs. You are so limited in battle strategies in the beginning that it is actually quite difficult, but as you go on you get more and more options for your tactics that the game gets insanely easier. I guess they expect everyone that plays their game is a retard and will be so confused by all the added abilities, that they just plain don't scale the difficulty of the game accordingly. "Well, we'll give them all this elemental magic, but I doubt they'll be smart enough to make use of it. I mean who could ever guess that ice works well on fire enemies? This game should qualify as a fucking IQ test." Sure thing Mr. Designer. "Aero cuts damage so low that its almost negligible, and if they are attacking full force, even if they get hit they will gain enough mana to cure themselves and recast Aero and THEN SOME before Aero runs out, but I doubt anyone will figure that shit out." Fair enough. I'm not really complaining about this for one reason: The game was so fucking frustrating before that this is like a breath of fresh air. It also hasn't gotten so easy that its boring either. Its hard enough that you can't run into battle without a plan and you might need to take a couple attempts at the bosses, but easy enough that it doesn't make me want to shattered the disc just so I can see it break.

Thats all I'll say for now. If I keep going, I might as well review it right now. Also, I'll run the risk of getting side-tracked and talking about genitalia or who knows what.

Image from here. Go there if you too wish to make your very own totally gay picture of Sora. Seriously, the kid is like 12, wtf. As always, I'll remove the picture if asked by the creator. We may have differences in taste, but I respect your artistic rights.

Word of the Day: Rotomontade

2008-03-13T12:52:00.021-05:00

rodomontade \rod-uh-muhn-TADE; roh-duh-; -TAHD\, noun:
Vain boasting; empty bluster; pretentious, bragging speech; rant.

These are rejoinders born out of a need to deflate a balloon filled with what others view as pomposity or rodomontade.
-- Corey Mesler, "Dispatch #1: Buying the Bookstore (The Early Days)", ForeWord, August 2000

This is just one of those words you can't help but laugh at. I mean, look at this shit. Rotomontade? Sounds like some French piece of shit we're suppose to accent on the e. You know, the whole é? BUT YOU DON'T. THAT'S NOT HOW THIS SHIT'S FUCKING PRONOUNCED. Silent e's - they fuck me up, and soon they'll fuck you up. Who gives a shit about the definition either? I mean... what the fuck - "I'm going to use fancy words, and rub it in your face because I know big words such as rotomontade." Mother fucker's contradicting himself right there. You see that? He's bragging about knowing a word that carries the definition of bragging. Yeah, fuck that guy.

And another thing - who the shit does this "Corey Mesler" douchebag think he is? What the fuck are these words he's using? Rejoinders? Gay. It's another word for dildo. Pomposity? Queer. This is slang, meaning "to fellate." I'm tired of Corey Mesler's faggotry... aren't you? Why can't I get into the fucking dictionary, making up stupid fucking words like "rejoinders" and "pomposity"? I know now that Corey Mesler takes it - hard - up the anus hole, from many many burly black men. He loves it too. Fucking anal tickler.

Let me tell you something. While I'm not a homophobe, if I was Corey Mesler, first I'd change my name, before anything. That name screams out "PLEASE FUCK ME - MEN ONLY, 24/7." After I changed my name, I wouldn't make shit up all the time, especially words. The English language is hard enough to learn and understand as it is now, and then you get fuckers like Mesler fucking shit up in the worst possible way. He obviously doesn't have respect for any minorities. OBVIOUSLY.

Lastly, after I stopped making words up and letting men have their way with me, I'd kill myself... only because I'd know that I'm not needed, and everybody hates me.

Kingdom Hearts: Notes

2008-03-12T21:44:00.003-05:00

This isn't a full review. I will probably do a full review later just for kicks (I'm not IGN or some shit, I review whatever the hell I want, even if it came out 17 years ago.)

Anyways. So, I'm replaying this game you might of heard of. It's called Kingdom Hearts. Holy shit, right? Several months ago (or a few weeks ago, I'm horrible with time these days) I picked up a copy of Kingdom Hearts 2. I was at my "bros" so I decided to pop it in for a test run before I got home and was ready to devote hours of time to it on my own system. Turns out, I have no fucking clue what the first Kingdom Hearts was about anymore. Seriously. I didn't even remember who the main bad guy was or how he was trying to take over the world or whatever the hell it was he was doing. So I've decided to replay Kingdom Hearts, the original, before I tackle the sequel.

I know, I know. Shouldn't I have played the sequel a million years ago anyways? Well, here's the story:

I tend to decide whether or not I will like something by the fans associated with it. If someone is a douchebag, I tend to think that they like shitty things. This is a fair assumption ninety percent of the time. This is typically why I stray away from certain anime, like Full Metal Alchemist or Inuyasha. Of course, I have actually seen Inuyasha now, and I was correct in assuming it was total shit. I have no idea about FMA. I do know that if I hadn't started watching Naruto and Bleach from episode one on fansub, while they were being released in Japan, I would have seen the Cartoon Network Fans of these shows and said "No thanks." So, like I said, it is not always a fair assumption. This is how I classified Kingdom Hearts, before I even picked up the controller. Luckily, I befriended a huge fan of the series and decided to pick up the then discounted game to give it a try. I loved it. It included simplified versions of what I like about RPGs and mashed them into a more action-oriented play style. The story itself was quite gripping as well, being directed by, my favorite Final Fantasy character designer, Tetsuya Nomura. I'm not the biggest fan of Disney movies, but it does have a certain nostalgia factor even for me. So I play it through, and then I'm hyped up for the sequel. Sequel comes along shortly after, and I don't have a ton of cash. I decide in my head that I'll just wait for it to drop in price. I mean, I literally beat the first game less than a month or so before the sequel was released, so even though I wanted to know what happened, I didn't want to pay for roughly the exact same game I just finished. Time goes by, and the price drops. By this time, I wasn't even thinking about Kingdom Hearts anymore. I was too busy enjoying whatever the hell it was I was enjoying. New consoles probably. I'm not exactly sure when the price dropped, so its hard to say. Anyways, now that the holiday season gaming has quited down, I finally decided to pick it up. My reactions to it? Well, thats for another article, lets start talking about the first Kingdom Hearts some more.

So I pop this sucker in, anxious to know what the fuck is going on with Sora and his buddies. I decide I should at least play it on extreme mode, since this is technically my second play through of the game. I set up my character thusly: Strength=Sword; Weakness=Shield; EXP=Faster to 50. Alls going well. Until I realize, shit, extreme mode is FUCKING HARD. Especially since I don't remember anything about the game anymore, so I'm as good at it as if it was my first play through. However, I've been managing to struggle my way through.

Random thoughts: I understand the need for the right analog to control the menu, but having the camera controlled with R2 and L2 is SOOOOO PS1. The camera is annoying. Lock-on mode sometimes fixes this, and sometimes it doesn't. It likes to get caught on things, giving you nice camera angles of the enemies asses that help in absolutely no way, unless you like it when it hurts. Its normally only a viable option for bosses anyways, as normal enemies die so fast that you have to keep hitting the lock-on button over and over again. Although I guess this isn't fixed in bosses either, as getting attacked will sometimes disengage lock-on as well (I'm pretty sure this happens every time you fall down, but it might only be sometimes.) But don't worry, the camera angle, as well as your attacks like to lock on to whatever target they feel like it when you aren't locked-on to anything. It seems to go for the closest, unless there is a boss, which it favors over regular enemies. This might be an option you can turn off, but maybe not. I haven't really checked. It helps most of the time, but other times you have to lock-on and manually cycle through the enemies to get your character to attack the one you want. Healing in battle is hard as shit. In extreme mode you can normally only take around three hits before you need to heal, unless you power level or something. The problem is, during most fights there is too much shit going on to get the chance. Both the cure spell and healing items feature an obnoxiously long delay that leaves you wide open. Finding the right time to heal is the key to defeating most bosses. If you are like me, this will cause swearing. A lot of swearing. I don't even want to repeat some of the things I've called this game. I understand the point of the extreme mode is to be challenging, but most of the challenges seem to be struggling with the controls of the game, rather than honing your skills and strategies. Defeating the bosses mostly requires patience and luck. The strategies for the bosses are so simplistic, that you typically figure them out in the first 30 seconds of the first attempt fighting the boss. The next million attempts or so, are simply trying to do the strategy perfectly and not have the game fuck you over. I think this results from this game being mostly just a button masher on the normal mode. Making such a game "hard" makes the result of fights more about luck than skill, since their is little skill to the game to begin with. I mean, sure, dodging ability, and picking your opening are skills, but when you have 10 enemies around you that can attack with projectiles and you can only see one or two on the screen at one time... how fast your twitch reflexes are doesn't really matter.

Guess I'll wrap this up. No real conclusion. I'll review it when I finish it. Talk to you then. HAHAHAHA. Whatever.

Image from here. Whatever the hell that is. I just used Google Image and picked the one that amused me. If you made it, and want me to take it down, I will oblige.

DZ Joins the Damn Ranks Ass, Fuck

2008-03-08T15:31:00.000-06:00

So I guess DZ wants to contribute to this shit. So he'll be doing that. Ass. Shit. Well, fuck, thats cool I guess. Balls. Titties.

So welcome aboard, cock. Beer?

Advent Children

2008-03-08T10:20:00.002-06:00

Click the thumbnail for the full-size version. This is what boredom and not giving a shit about the end result produces in Photoshop for me. I could of drawn this all nice, but this version took like.. 5 seconds. So there you go. You probably won't get this joke unless you have seen the movie. I'm not even sure if you will get it unless you have seen it subtitled. I have no idea how they changed the lines for the dubbed version of it, because I only listened to the dubbing for four seconds before realizing it was a pile of shit.

Folklore

2008-03-08T09:59:00.001-06:00

Rating: Thumbs Up

Folklore, in a nutshell, plays out like Devil May Cry meet Pokemon, with a dramatic storyline tying together the gameplay. An odd comment, I know, but it is actually quite true. Reviewers have had trouble classifying this game, since it borrows heavily from RPG games, but is far to action oriented to be an RPG. Why any reviewer has cared so much about classifying the game confuses me entirely.

The storyline is quite a tangled web, but I'll try to give you the overall feel. Basically you have two main characters, Keats and Ellen, who are summoned to the town of Doolin under mysterious circumstances. Keats is there for the story, as he's a reporter for a magazine dealing with the occult. Ellen is there trying to find her mother, and unravel her forgotten memories. They quickly realize that Doolin is no ordinary village, and with the help of half-lives (beings able to cross between the real world and the Netherworld at will) they are shown how to travel into the Netherworld and speak to the dead. From this point on they begin to discover the dark secrets of the town by talking to its living and dead citizens. I don't think its much of a spoiler to say that both characters learn that it was more than coincidence that brought them to the town.
The stories pacing I found to be the main problem. By the 2nd or 3rd chapter you honestly come to expect that every time you ask someone about the history of the town they will be cut off right before revealing all that they know. Seriously. Until the big reveals of the game in the final chapters, you get like a sentence of new information at the end of every chapter. It is a ridiculously slow pace, but I will say it does make the reveals more worth it. As for how the storyline is told, I thought they did a pretty good job. "Talkie" scenes are put together in four different ways, and in order of least to most frequent are as follows: beautiful FMV's with spoken dialog, in-game cinematics with spoken dialog, comic-styled scenes with written dialog, and juxtaposing the two interacting characters on the left and right of the screen in front of the action with written dialog. The first two work, no doubt about that. The voice work didn't stand out really, but was not terrible by any means. There's not much of it to judge, which is disappointing on its own. I understand that voice work costs a fair bit of money, but by this generation for a game with as deep a story as this one is trying to tell it really is almost necessary to convey the subtle emotions of your characters. To fix this, I would say that at least the comic-styled scenes should have dialog. Oh well. The comic-styled scenes have taken some criticism , but I liked them. From a developers stand-point they require no where near as much work as a cinematic, but from a viewers stand-point they are far more interesting then looking at two characters on the left and the right, with dialog in the middle. Your opinion really just depends on if you think they are worse than having a cinematic, or better than having just lines of dialog. I'm in the glass is half full lot, probably because I enjoyed the story they were telling.

The gameplay in this game is pretty awesome. Ha. Did I just say that? Well, it is. Basically in the Netherworld there are these souls, called folks, that are, essentially, the douchebags of the Netherworld. Unlike the other denizens of the Netherworld, whom help you out on your journey (for the most part) these guys are all about fucking up your day. So what you gotta do is bash the shit out of them, until their id is showing. Their id is something like their 'essence' or their 'soul.' Anyways, when thats showing you hit the R1 button, which throws out this spiritual lasso, and then you yank that bitch right out of its body by pulling up on the controller. After defeating an enemy in this way (you can also just beat them until they die) you will acquire their powers. You can then assign them to the x, circle, square, or triangle buttons to use their abilities. The variety of folks is quite nice. You have melee attackers, ranged attackers, folks that can invoke sleep, or throw a sticky goo out, ect. They also vary in elements (fire, ice, water, ect.) in typical RPG fashion. Using fire folks against ice folks, and the like will generally produce favorable results. Of course its not always this simple, so they have picture books which you can find pages for that give you hints on how to defeat certain folks. These come in handy for bosses. Now don't get me wrong. At this point this game sounds like a hardcore RPG, but the combat is all in real-time, and quite fast paced. Its not nearly as fast as Devil May Cry, but its far closer to that then it is to your typical J-RPG. Keats and Ellen control almost the same in combat, with a few differences. Keats moves are more direct, and he can only use one folk at a time. Ellen has direct attack folks as well, but most of her folks will stand in the place she summons them and then attack on their own. She can have as many of these kind of folks out at a time as you can manage (normally about 2-3 depending how long the folks last.) Also, some of her "summons" will bring out multiple folks of the same type. Like the folk Hawk, from Warcadia, which she will summon 1-3 of (depending on how leveled up the folk is) which will charge the enemy. The energy used to call the folks forward is also handled slightly different. Ellen's energy bar will constantly recharge, but quite slowly. Keats energy bar will recharge fully after a short period of inactivity. Another difference is that Ellen can find many different cloaks that give her various upgrades, and change her visual appeal. Keats does not have upgradeable outfits (although he still has unlockable ones for purely aesthetic purposes.) What he does have, is a charge bar that when full allows you to transform into ultra-Keats (not the real name, sheesh), which makes you temporarily invincible and your folk moves will be executed as different ultra-Keats attacks instead, but maintaining the effects (fire moves still work against ice enemies, blah, blah). Finally, Keats and Ellen can acquire some of the same folks, but also different ones. Even the ones they have in common will normally act differently for each character. The main problem with the two characters is that neither is all that different from the other. The differences I pointed out don't change how you play each character all that much. They give each character strengths and weaknesses, but since each character has a set path it has to play, there is no strategy of using one character for one boss since it works better for it. You will just have moments where you are like "Shit, this would be so much easier with the other character." Which will lead you to wonder why they bothered to have multiple characters, yet have yanked the freedom to use them interchangeably for tasks at your discretion. This device mainly works to drive the story, but only makes gameplay redundant, as you will play through almost the exact same levels with both characters. I guess I should touch on quests very quickly. Quests are an unnecessary part of the game. They are simply little tasks you can do that will net you some items, or some rare folks. They range from interesting to wastes of time. They are only for the completionists out there to tackle, but they are a nice addition none-the-less.

I guess I should touch on the subject of Downloadable Content (DLC). This is kind of a touchy subject right now. A lot of gamers and critics don't know what to feel about charging for extras for a game. There is a lot of fear that companies will put less into the box, only to sell it to the consumer later as "bonus content." On the other hand, development schedules for games are really tight, and when companies ship a game there is always stuff they wish they could of gotten in there that they just didn't have time for. DLC gives them a chance to make their deadline, and then release the extra content to those who really enjoyed the game. So the question is: "Is DLC a good thing for the industry?" I don't think anyone can answer that question yet. Give it five years or so and we shall see. Folklore has quite a bit of DLC. I have not purchased any of it, yet. I did however download the free Christmas pack, which has two extra costumes and an extra quest (I think the quest has an extra folk in it, haven't had a chance to try it out yet, I'm still doing all my other little completionist activities.) I guess I will say this: I wouldn't feel like I got any less of a game even if I don't get the DLC for Folklore. They only add folks, quests, and costumes, which are neat, but nothing I would lose sleep over. With that said, I also think the DLC available is a tad pricey for most gamers. Only huge fans of Folklore will probably bother with it at all.

I guess it is conclusion time. I really liked this game. I think it was an amazing early title for the PS3. By that I mean that it definitely has room to grow in a sequel, now that they have the hang of developing on the platform. I'd like to see this game with more expansive environments, a reworked character system, and more voice work. If you have a PS3 this is a must play, even if you only rent it. This isn't a game I would buy the console for, but I would definitely put it on the list of games to check out after getting it.

On The "Why" Of This Site

2008-03-05T23:16:00.000-06:00

Who gives a shit about blogs. No question mark required; no one does. I have no idea why I made this blog. I mean, I have stuff I want to say, to be sure, but I know that no one else gives a shit about me or my stupid opinions. Not even relatives. Right now I'm probably barely hovering over 0 hits for this page. I could care less.

Updates to this page will be random. Ridiculously random. My main passion is video games, so expect a lot about them (whoever YOU are.) But I'll also just rant about shit, or draw up a comic, or who knows what else.

I guess I just made this page to waste my time. Heh, probably.

I'm probably going to write a review of Folklore soon, if anyone cares.

No More Heroes

2008-03-03T04:43:00.001-06:00

Rating: Thumbs Up

No More Heroes is from the same studio that made Killer7, so if you played that, which you haven't, then you will probably be inclined to like this game. You'd probably already own this game, if you had played Killer7, so lets move on. The lead guy behind No More Heroes is Suda51. He is the Quentin Tarantino of video games. He likes his games a little artsy, full of violence, satire, humor, and they manage to never take themselves too seriously. To say the least, No More Heroes is full of style. Not to say the graphics are great. They aren't. The graphics, at least the environments, are quite bad. The characters are decent however, and benefit from, now overused, cell-shading.

The story of the game? You are Travis Touchdown, denizen of Santa Destroy. The game picks up after the wheels of the plot are already turning. In a cut scene before you even play the game you learn that: Last night Travis picked up an assassination mission from some bar floozy, killed the guy, and now he's ranked as the 11th best assassin. Now he's set on reaching for the top, and heading after the assassin's ranked above him one at a time. Alright, bam! Game time. The plot from here on out follows Travis's interesting journey to the top, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, there are quite a few plot twists and turns.

Combat is fast and furious, with Travis wielding his pseudo-light-saber. Its a combination of button mashing, Wii waggling, and some wrestling moves thrown in for flavor. Its generally fun, despite it's apparently simplicity. It really shines in the big boss fights, which are by far the highlight of this game. They test your strategic mind in figuring out their weaknesses. At least, the first half of them do. The second half begin to test you PATIENCE instead. Boss fights are long. Very long. Your enemy has a lot of health, and you are going to be whackin' at them for awhile. When you are attempting to find their weak points, this is not bothersome. However, most of the latter bosses have instant kill moves that they whip out near the end of the battle. You will probably be tricked into getting hit by this move for each of the bosses at least once, if not multiple times. This is especially infuriating because it takes so long to grind your way to this part of the battle, that dying to one of these moves is like getting kicked in the nuts. Hard. Your second attempts, thirds, fourths, ect. are in no way fun, but very tiresome. Once you know how to attack the boss, the first part of the battle is now just you swearing about how you lost the last time while trying to get their health down to 10% or so, and hoping you don't fuck up and get hit by that move again. Regardless, the payoff for taking down the bosses in this game is always worth the effort. Aside from the sense of accomplishment, you also get to see an amazing death scene that typically furthers No More Heroes' unique, and very strange plot.

Now we get to the part of the game I don't like to talk about very much. The "Santa Destroy" aspect of the game. Between kicking assassin's asses, Travis has to earn some dough by completing various tasks in Santa Destroy. Its this game's open-world element, that the kids are all going crazy about these days. To put it simply: it is poorly executed. So far as the money earning elements, you have to do various 3rd rater jobs like picking up trash and finding cats. Doing these jobs nets you minimal cash, but they open up your money makers; assassination missions. These involve: killing some people within a time limit, killing a guy within a time limit, hitting a baseball, and some other slightly different missions. The 3rd rater jobs have tons of variety to them, and mimic mini-games seen in other Wii titles, although not nearly with as much polish as most. The problem is, you don't get enough money from these missions to make them worthwhile to try again once you have unlocked the assassination missions. The assassinations on the other hand, completely lack variety except in their difficulty curves which is no way reflected in their rewards. Some of the easiest missions payout the most, making me wonder why I would even bother with the more difficult missions, unless I was an OCD completionist freak since you don't even unlock anything by getting all gold medals for the missions. As for the rest of the city, you can buy some clothes, rent videos, workout, buy new beam sabers and upgrades, run around kicking dumpsters to get new shirts, and find balls to trade for moves that are unnecessary for the completion of the game. Thats really about it, and these activities are so shallow in value that I think the open world should have been dropped completely and replaced with an interface. Theres no reason to have to ride your shoddily controlled bike back and forth to these locations. Don't get me wrong, open world games are awesome. I love them when they do it RIGHT. Just being open world because you feel like it, is not a good reason to do it, however. This game does not have enough substance to merit the open world elements, and it harms the overall game way more than it helps.

The conclusion here is that this game is still awesome. I know that I have pointed out a ton of things I dislike about this game, but honestly, they are just the things that are keeping this game from being perfect. Whether or not you like this game will really depend on if the story, style, and combat grab you, and if you can deal with some short-comings in a few other areas to enjoy what is a fantastic experience. I can, because what this game does well, it does very well. Next time I just hope they streamline the whole experience.

Screw Attack

2008-03-03T03:56:00.003-06:00

So, I dig GameTrailers.com for the most part. I'm normally against most of the bigger name gaming websites (gamespot, IGN, 1up, ect.) but GameTrailers offers a great selection of trailers for the games I'm excited about. Awesome right? They should hire me to advertise for them or something. I've been pretty happy with the way they have managed to just show off the games, and shut up about it. G4, "TV for gamers" or whatever they have as their tagline these days, sucks for doing the exact opposite. The have idiot hosts that blab all day long about crap I don't care about. They remind me of the guy in that forum you goto that keeps posting topics about his DeviantArt page and telling you to go comment on his work, but no one gives a shit about his stupid Naruto Fanart Yaoi drawings.

Anyways, it turns out that GameTrailers shares in having annoying hosts, but they are holding the reins to Screw Attack, which is thankfully only a small series of videos on the site. I just finished watching the top 10 worst transitions from 2d to 3d, and I did agree with most of the picks. Flat-out lies were number 4 and number 2. They put Mega Man Legends at the number 4 spot.

Mega Man Legends was a gigantic breath of fresh air in the Mega Man series which has deviated little from its formula since its creation. Mega Man is a series notorious for NOT innovating in a company notorious for NOT innovating, and its probably because of idiots like the host of this show who bitch whenever a series they like tries to brave new ground. Mega Man Legends and Mega Man Legends 2 are phenomonal PS1 games. I would still recommend playing them today. If a sequel is announced I will be the first one dancing, believe me.

Let me jump back for a second and say that I love the Mega Man series, 2d and 3d. I only really followed the original Mega Man, Mega Man X, and Mega Man Legend series though. I have not played the newer Battle Network, and only briefly played Mega Man Zero. To me, all of the Mega Man series have been stagnating. I really wish Capcom would attempt to push Mega Man forward.

Sonic Adventure was rocking the charts at number 2, which was completely undeserved. Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 were great games for their time. They properly captured the feel of a Sonic game in 3 dimensions, and began to delve more into Sonic's world (the voice acting and writing were crap, but hey, they were breaking new ground here.) They setup the foundation for all 3d Sonic games to follow, it is just to bad that instead of building on this foundation, Sega has decided to just rape it. 3d Sonic game have gotten WORSE in almost every way since these two games. They have managed to get glitchier, harder to control, and they even completely removed A-life from the formula. A-life was, of course, the raising of those little cute Chao's. It was only a mini-game, but it was one of the most in-depth mini-games I've seen in a game. It also gave both of the games tons of replay value. You think if they removed this huge mini-game from the feature set of the new Sonic games they could at least spend more time on fine-tuning the core gameplay. You would of course be horribly mistaken.

I guess I'll summarize everything I just said... for some reason... cause thats what people do. GameTrailers.com is good for game videos, but Screw Attack sucks. Sonic Adventure and Mega Man Legends were awesome games, but now Sega and Capcom are fucking up both the Sonic and Mega Man series respectively.

I'll complain about some more stuff later. See you then.