Lost and the dammed...

What can I say about The Lost and the Dammed that hasn’t been said already I’m about six or seven missions into it and my god this game was the best money for game I’ve ever spent. The mission structure is some of the best I’ve ever seen in a GTA game it really highlights the way the story plays out, some people play these games to be bad…I do too but for some reason I also like the stories that go along with the game. At the rate I’m going with this game it should be done before the end of the week but even if I do this game was really worth the money.

Most people are pissed at Microsoft for buying up all the DLC, but to be honest Sony is also to blame for it. Which makes me sound like an Xbox Fanboy but really for me it’s about the games and Sony forgot about the games, well until this year of course. Its seems to me that Microsoft kind of saw the recession coming and realized that twenty dollars seems like a lot better then sixty when it comes to buying a game: that is if your worried about losing your job or have lost your job that is. Spending twenty on a full gaming experience seems like a hell of a deal for 22 missions…plus 12 motorcycle races. People are screaming about how Sony should drop the price on the Ps3 but really they should be thinking about dropping the price of there greatest hits games down to twenty. It may not seem like much but Microsoft took twenty dollars off of Fable 2 and Halo 3, basically because shortly they’ll be sold with the system. Those are high end exclusives that sold really well and are were still being bought at sixty before the drop, what does that say about Microsoft…bend but never break. Unit next time…

So the NHL playoffs are in full swing and for some reason I’ve gotten very into them as of late. So I picked up NHL 08 for my 360 I would have gotten 09 but sixty bucks is way too much to pay for a spur of the minute buy. When I started to figure out how to play the game and by the way the controls are really intuitive, shooting with the right analog stick really blows the hell out of hitting a button to shoot. It seems to make it feel more real winding up and shooting like that but that’s not really what this post is about.

The real reason I decided to post about this was the fact that I didn’t recognize any of the fuckin players on the Wild my home states team. So I made my own characters the first of which was Ernest Hemingway, now Hemingway fought in World War 1 so I figured he would be used to people shooting at him and he seemed to be a tough guy so I figured he could take a hit from an Incoming player of the other team. Alright I made him 6’2 some were around 250 ibs I should really should have check out the stats of the other players cause he’s really jacked up…He maybe the definition of brick wall in hockey cause I don’t think anyone got a shot past him, now the number on his jersey is the year that he tried to commit suicide: I’m a sick bastard I know but I thought it would be funny and hopefully he would have too. Now that I had my favorite author all ready to defend my goal: it was time to pick another random person to play for my team of Historical giants the next one was an obvious choice really.

So my author is killing it between the pipes: that commercial where Abe Lincoln kicks the shit out of a whole group of people. Yeah so I made him my Right wing, basically I made him fast because of that tall tale about him out running his buckshot and shooting himself in the ass. I also made him very tough even though I don’t think a guy with his body type would be a 99. I realized how sick I was when I gave him the number 50 because that was when his first child died: heh who says hockey is boring.

I’m considering making a whole team of historical figures but for now I’m just enjoying the game…I’m unbeaten at 4 wins under my belt and this guy Gaborik is unstoppable when he goes one on one with an opposing defensive play and is pretty much scoring all my goals for now. Hopefully I wont be tired of this game before I finish the season maybe to keep it fresh I'll turn up the difficulty...cause that always works right. On a side note on my pile of shame I’ve beat the first and second Metal Gear Solid games and am currently working on the third. Now that I’m past the nasty control of Metal Gear Solid: the story is finnaly brought to light and there is a lot more joy when I’m playing the games. I’ll write about those three games here shortly when I finish the third one. Also I tried to grow my self a “METAL GEAR BEARD” but it turns out my facial hair is very course and impossible to control so I am going to shave this shit tomorrow.

Highly Addictive and Replay Factor

Have you ever played a game where it just seems like they nailed it perfectly and you found yourself playing the same levels over and over again? I want this to happen more often. Dead Space did it. It was fairly repetitive but it was solid all the way through. And seriously, think back to when you were a kid. Alright, people under the age of 25 might not understand this unless they had an older brother or sister that was into gaming. But sit there and think. What were your favorite games growing up? I would be willing to place money that it was something off of the Atari, Nintendo, or an arcade game. What made those so much fun? They were simplistic games after all right? Compared to what's out there today yeah. Come on, Frogger? You have to get a frog from one side of the screen to the other. Pitfall? You have to swing over things and jump over logs, holes, and fires. Or how about QBert? That fucker just jumped from platform to platform lighting them up like he was Michael Jackson or something. All simplistic games and highly addictive.

If you're wondering where I am going with this here's where. I've started playing quite a bit of the Playstation network games lately. Bionic Comando, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo HD, Everyday Shooter, and the best one out of all of them, Worms. I never caught the Worms craze back in the day. To me it just reminded me of the turn based missile command games you could play online for free where all you would do is place the projectile at what height you wanted it at and then held down the space bar until you got the desired power. Well, I was wrong. I was so wrong and now I wish I had played them back in the day. Very simple game and there's nothing better than some cartoon worm violence. There's something really satisfying about swinging over to a worm on the ledge and just poking him off or setting off the detonator right next to him so he gets blown off the screen. I'm not even going to go into how much fun it is to send an explosive sheep over to your enemies.

I'm not really asking anything of the game industry. If all the games went back and started over from square one and they made them that simple from now until the end of time I think I would get a little bored. I do like my first person shooters after all and if I really want to play a dumbed down first person shooter I'll throw in a little Duke Nukem for old times sake. I just want quality. Thanks to every game company that's working on putting out little titles on the Playstation Network or XBox Live. Those games are really amazing if you're in the mood for them.

I guess I lied. I do want something from the game industry now. What I want the game to be something that has a decent replay factor to it. Again, Dead Space actually had replay value to it which I thought was a little strange but was a pleasant surprise. I wish Uncharted: Drake's Fortune would have had a little more replay value to it. Unfortunately it didn't and the only time I throw it in is when I want to show it to someone. It was as close to an Indiana Jones video game that didn't suck as there ever will be. Lucas Arts could learn a thing or two from that game. Everything was done perfectly. I have yet to play an Indiana Jones game that didn't suck. Think about it. Can you honestly even name a title of an Indiana Jones game off of the top of your head? Didn't think so and if you do name one you probably opened up another browser and googled or wiki'd it. Cheater.

First person shooter games have that replay value to them now. They really didn't have that much replay before to be honest. It was more the challenge to beat the game. Now with first person shooters they are almost always throwing on the obligatory online aspect with various game modes. Death Match baby. This is where their replay value comes into play. Nothing feels better than mowing down people using mics that are saying "Nigger this or Nigger that." Seriously, when I tell my friends I am hopping online to play some death match all I have to say is "I'm killing Nigger Haters" and they know exactly what I am talking about. And you know damn well it's some ignorant stupid white kid or even worse an ignorant man child spewing out that crap which makes it oh so satisfying when you mow them down.

Anyway, I am rambling on. I think it's either time to crash or time to kill some nigger haters. I so wish they had a filter or a way to block those morons from playing. If you're going to talk smack at least be a little more creative and go after the Asians. Just kidding.

Dam it feels good to be a Jedi.

So another game is done and Knights of the old republic is out of my pile of shame, only thirty some games left woot….what the fuck was I thinking buying all these games. I really need to find something better to spend my money on.

The final fight with Darth Malak was I thought impossible, for awhile I didn’t think I could beat him he was a lot more powerful then I thought he was going to be. . There weren’t any guides online that were anywhere near the build of my character, turns out I was supposed to have saber throw and so I wasn’t really prepared for him.. So basically I had to wait until he was done absorbing the captured Jedi and there’s nothing like getting you ass kicked by a guy who can pretty much heal himself to full life. All I can say is it must have looked like a Benny hill skit with me running for my life while being chased by the Lord of the sith, I still beat him in the end but it was ugly as hell. I feel kind of cheap trapping him with adhesive grenades and then hitting him with thermal detonators, which worked really well. Then I ran until I could heal myself then hit him with force wave after I ran out of grenades, its still funny that I beat the lord of the sith without using the force pretty much at all. My next game is going to be a bitch, why am I torturing myself with a game like State of emergency….going to follow it closer on this blog until then

TIME TO SMOKE!!!

Tension in Video games and the lack there of

What makes a game good? A good story line? Decent play controls? Tension and the threat of death? All three of these make a game good and when you have all three of these you have the perfect combination. A perfect example of this is Bioshock. I can't really call it a first person shooter. It's first person perspective but it has so much more going on for it. Great story line. Tension. Above average controls.

Now, here's where I am going to go off. Story line is always THE most important part of a video game. I am sorry but if it doesn't have a story line that I am getting into within the first half hour I am probably going to end up dropping the game and losing interest in it. Play control is also very important but some games have such a great story line that you can forgive the controls. A good example of this is the first Resident Evil games. For the most part the controls were fine but the camera angle ended up shafting you so many times that you may as well have been a whore working in the red light district yet you were able to move past that fact because the story was original and very well done. There was also one other thing that Resident Evil had going for it. An amazing feeling of tension. It was the first game where I was openly shitting my pants. It made me jump. It gave me chills. For me to say this says a lot because it takes a lot to get me. I don't think I have ever jumped because of a film. Why is this? It fully immersed me into it. This spawned a fascination with the survival horror genre for me. I will say that if you want to get the most jumps, chills, and over all creepy feelings you have to play Fatal Frame. I am so upset with myself that when I sold the PS2 and all the games that I included the Fatal Frame games with it. I wish I would have kept those.

Now, here is my current gripe with the video game industry. I am playing all of these first person shooter games like the Call of Duty games, Resistance games, and Kill Zone 2. I like first person shooter games. I like them a lot but there is one thing that is clearly missing. It took me awhile to put my finger on it too. I was playing these games and there was no sense of tension. Why was this? Here you are in a gun fight pinned down behind a wall or lurking through the water towards someone to slit their throat and there was nothing. I finally put my finger on it. The tension wasn't there. In older first person games you had a life bar and the only way to deal with your life bar was to be more careful with your movements, use a med pack, or die and start over. Newer games do not do this though. I was discussing this with a friend and he said that I can thank Halo for this. What I am talking about is this. Instead of having to use a med pack or find a medic to heal you all you have to do is duck down for a few seconds and your life replenishes. I don't know about you but if I get shot I am not going to be able to just duck down and start healing. It really takes away from the action. It removes the tension. Here I am in this gun fight and I am low on life so I duck down behind a wall for like 10 seconds and then pop back up and start firing. They have managed to dumb down the first person shooter to the point of taking something away from it. It's a lame trick to involve in any game. Bioshock doesn't do this. Bioshock you actually to press a button to use med packs or find a healing unit on the wall. It keeps the over-all tension of the game.

Here is my unheard cry to the video game industry. Quit thinking we are not capable of handling a life bar that we have to figure out a way to raise ourselves. Please, PLEASE hear my cry. I want to be challenged. I want to feel the tension. I don't want to play another game where I love the story, the play controls are good, but leaves me feeling unfulfilled.

Games with great tension that I love.

1. Fatal Frame
2. Bioshock
3. Resident Evil 2 (shoot me because I liked the second one better than the first one)
4. Silent Hill
5. Dead Space (Best Survival Horror game for the Next Gen systems so far)

Great games that missed on the tension level but are worth playing.

1. Resistance: Fall of Man (Resistance 2 totally missed the mark and didn't feel right)
2. Call of Duty 4
3. Call of Duty: World At War
4. Killzone 2
5. Fallout 3 (This didn't really miss the mark because the story was amazing)

Alright, I realize that the games with tension that I noted mostly are not first person shooters. I realize this. I am okay with this. I want my games to suck me in and most first person games don't do that. If you have a PS3 and want to actually put a bullet in me add me on the PS Network. My user name is Astral_Complex. You can take your frustrations out on me.

God of .....wait what?

About a month ago I beat and didn’t really enjoy God of War 2 very much until it was over of course. That sentence didn’t make much sense, but if you think about it and high sight is 20/20 after it was over it dawned on me that I like the concept of Gow more then I liked the game itself. The feeling of power and the way krotoses power is represented, every time Kratos hits an enemy the earth shacks and you can feel the power and rage that consumes him. That’s why I loved the first god of war, the problem that I have with Gow2 is that it feels really generic like it was made from the suggestions of a focus group. The levels feel like they were left over from the first game and they just added more enemies because some guy in that same focus group decided there weren’t enough enemies on screen. With all its problems, I’m still a little torn about playing the third even with THE DAVE giving his blessing, but I finished it and have sense moved on to Knights of the old republic and my next couple post will be about it.

Until then TIME TO SMOKE!!

God of War 2

I hate it.