Look, an Educational Halo Video

The above video I created as my final project in Composition & Theory. To make it, I used Adobe Premier Pro, and many, many hours of time. The video is an exploration into the arguments between composition and literature. If many of the jokes are over your head, that's because you aren't in an English grad program. Or you like to go outside. Either way, this was terribly difficult to do, but ultimately very fun. Enjoy!

On that whole iPad thing...

I recently had someone ask me what I thought about the iPad, to which I replied something along the lines of what is to follow here. At first I thought it was a waste of time and money, but I think it's much worse than that now. It's a waste of conversation (yet here I am talking about it, oh well). The fact that it's the newest "thing that people want without knowing why they want it" makes matters much, much worse. When the iPod launched, and then subsequently became actually usable and not-too-bad, everyone wanted it, but at least there was a real purpose for it -- music on-the-go, and a lot of it in one place. The iPad is neither an iPod nor a computer, and so sits in a weird limbo beckoning to people who are too stupid to really put any research into the thing. It can do some computer stuff and some iPod stuff, but not everything (well, it can do everything an iPod can do, minus the portability). Anyways, let's stop and look into why a normal, let's say average computer user should never get an iPad...

1) Cost. It starts at $500. If you want 3g capabilities, it's $579, and then $30 a month for the unlimited subscription to that service (no contract, though, which is kinda cool?). What does that $500 get you? Not a lot of storage, for one thing--the $500 model has 16 gigabytes of storage. Here's a flash drive that costs about $35 shipped that also has 16 gigs of storage. Want to double that to 32? Then be prepared to pay $100 more. One Hundred Dollars. To put that into perspective, Here's another drive that costs $70 shipped and holds 32 gigs. Somehow thumb drives have managed to double the storage for 35 bucks, yet Apple will happily charge you 100. Interesting, isn't it? Now, if you want the best iPad money can buy, you're looking at over $800. For something that isn't a computer. It boggles the mind. Then again, Apple always charges tons of money for everything they make

2) Usability (this is a big one). Apple will have you believe that this thing is the most versatile thing in the world. Yeah..no... it isn't. It's a big iPod Touch. It has the same app store that the iPod Touch / iPhone has had for years, and it still can't run multiple applications at the same time. Want to check your email when you're in the middle of reading a book? First you have to close the book app, then go into the email, then when you're done, close that, then go back into the book app. Can't minimize, can't multitask. Here's a quote from Engadget's review of it:

"For starters, as we mentioned earlier the iPad doesn't support multitasking, save for Apple's own applications: Safari, iPod, and Mail. Everything else you use on the device is a jump-into and then jump-out experience, which means that for things like IM apps, you're either having a conversation or you're not. For those of us who are used to the iPhone way of doing things, that's at least familiar, but if you're looking to have a conversation while getting your email in order (as you would on a laptop), you're out of luck."

Apple came out and said that users "don't want that" kind of usability. On an iPhone, where it's something small and you're probably doing one thing at a time anyway, maybe, but if you're going to release a product claiming to be "magical" and "revolutionary" (their actual words, check the website), you'd think it could actually do more than one thing at a time.

EDIT: Apple just announced the new iPhone OS 4, which will support multitasking-ish capabilities. Not 100% multitasking like netbooks/laptops/real PCs, but kinda close. How nice of them to implement something that everyone else has been enjoying for years, but make it seem like some kind of amazing achievement. Bravo? Still, I'll say what everyone is saying: FINALLY.

Moving on, the thing is a complete pain in the ass to hold in your hand. Think about it. You're going to be holding a 1.6 pound, rigid, metallic minicomputer when you want to use it. There are no grooves for your fingers or hands. There is no way it can bend or slip comfortably anywhere. Now think about trying to use the keyboard on it. How will you type? Prop it up on your leg? Use one hand to type? Let's say you figure you'll lay it flat on a table -- oh wait, Apple has made it sleek with a nice-looking, curved backing, meaning it'll wobble every time you try and type something on it while it's on its back. You know something's wrong when less than a week after it's been out, people are making stands for propping the thing up. I think actually physically using this would never be comfortable.

The internet browser on this thing is great, though -- it's fast, it's smooth, it's fluid. Okay. But here's the thing: most websites use Flash. The thing needed for any internet game website, or in some cases, entire internet sites themselves. This device does not support Flash, at all. And it probably never will. Any website that uses Flash either won't work at all or will work with very limited browsing capabilities. Let me say that again: Any websites that have Flash as their main way of conveying data to you will not work ever. That's insanely stupid, and honestly boggles the mind considering Apple claimed the internet browsing experience on the iPad to be the best you could ever have (their actual words).

Apple's also really pushing the whole "Look! It can play games!" thing. If you've ever tried to play a game on an iPhone, you should know it isn't the easiest thing to do most of the time, and is heavily dependent on what kind of game you want to play. Something like Scrabble would probably be fine, but playing a platformer? Please. Touch-screen controls are not at the perfected state yet where they will flawlessly do what you want them to. Now, the iPad does have a better interface/responsiveness, but the aforementioned difficulties in holding it, combined with a very prominent home button (meaning if you hold the iPad in landscape mode, you'll more than likely accidentally hit the home button, exiting the game and pissing you the hell off) means that, combined again with the fact that the device isn't exactly pocket-friendly or "mobile" like a PDA/PSP/Nintendo DS means gaming on the iPad is virtually just a bullet-point. Why would you spend $500+ on something that isn't ergonomic towards playing games? You wouldn't, thus, it is something that you'd only do because you have the device anyway.

3) E-Book Reader. As an e-book reader, it works pretty well. It has a lot of publishers on board, and a beautiful screen for displaying the e-books. Here's my advice of caution on this subject, though. For one thing, you must understand that the books you own are never really "yours". What does that mean? Well, look at it this way: When you purchase a book from Apple's iBook store, you purchase it to your account to be used on your iPad (or other iDevices), and that's it. You can't use it anywhere else, and if for some reason Apple doesn't think you should have it anymore, they can take it away from you. "No they can't!" you might think. Yes, they can. There was a major issue with this about a year ago with Amazon's Kindle. Ironically, it was with the book 1984. Basically, Amazon found out that it shouldn't have listed a certain publication of the book as being available on its e-book store, so, they removed it from the store and from anyone's Kindle who bought it without telling them and with no notification. Yes, those people got their money back, but the whole incident showed that when you buy something for your e-book reader, it isn't ever really yours; you're simply buying the right to look at it on that piece of technology. Apple is no different from Amazon, as it has been discussed in the past regarding the iPhone that if Apple wanted, they could disable any iPhone remotely via a "killswitch". This was all over the tech sites shortly after the iPhone launched. Has Apple ever had to use it? Probably not, but it's unsettling to know that they could and you'd be screwed.

Personally, I like to hold a book, knowing it's mine, and if I wanted to, I could lend it to someone else, or, better yet, 20 years from now I can pick it up again and enjoy it exactly the same way. You might throw a joke here right now like "well, I don't know if I'll be around in 20 years." Well, haha, but think about technology...in 6 years, or even 4, there will probably be a newer, better iPad that's faster and makes this one look like an 80's cell phone by comparison. Now you have to buy that (another $500?). Sure all the books you downloaded can be used on the new one, but there will be a transfer process of some kind, and you still had to buy a new piece of hardware just to keep up with reading books. Or you could just buy the book and keep it on a shelf forever.

But all that aside, the only other "problem" with the iPad and reading books is the screen itself -- it's a backlit screen. Some people, after reading text on a computer screen for an hour+ tend to have eye strain issues. The reason why the Kindle is so spiffy is because it uses something called "e-ink" instead of a normal, backlit LCD screen. This "e-ink" pretty much mimics how text looks on paper, with no backlighting, and with no strain on the eyes. Now for some people they will never have an issue with the iPad's backlit screen for reading. Some people will...so, this is really a personal preference thing.

4) Minimal Design. Apple is known for the sleekness of stuff. Okay. Well, that's fine and all for an iPhone or an iPod, but with this thing, which is pretty much claiming to be a computer...it kinda sucks. There are NO ports on this thing. No usb, no ethernet, nothing. Actually I take that back, there's a headphone jack. If you want to have any of those ports, you have to get an adapter. Maybe you'd never need any of that anyway (like an ethernet port), but there isn't even a card reader on it so you can quickly and easily load pictures to the thing. Even the cheapest, slowest netbooks have that stuff. Some people like the minimal design because it's less to worry about, but I think it hinders what this thing could really be capable of.

Now, all of this isn't to say that the iPad is a terrible, terrible device that can't do anything that anyone wants it to do. What it does, it does pretty damn well. It works fast, smoothly, and is basically designed with idiots in mind, meaning, anyone should be able to pick it up and use it. I just think that for the price, you could easily get a laptop that does everything the iPad does, with a bigger screen and 300 times more functionality. And if you throw in the thought of getting a netbook, then your device, I'd say, is straight up better.

But my real suggestion would be to go and hold one somewhere if you can, and use it, and see if after the initial "ooOOo, look at the pretty screen and metal-ness of it" wears off, you could see yourself using it all the time, or for an hour straight, or for seriously typing on, or...etc.etc.

This is my 2 cents. I'd never buy an iPad, and if I were given one, I don't know if I'd use it. I'd probably sell it to an Apple fanboy, get a netbook with a 1.66 Ghz, dual-core CPU, 2 gigs of RAM, a 160 gig HD, and use the 125 bucks I'd still have left over to get something else that's useful...like a few videogames, or a new hard drive for my desktop (the iPad has a 1000 Mhz CPU, 256 megs of RAM, comparatively). Sure I wouldn't look as cool as the Apple fanboys do, but fuck those people.

Somewhat Modern Warfare 2

A lot has been said about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I mean a lot. And most of it comes from editors required to spit out an opinion, or from people whose game-playing experiences are (surprise!) pretty much only their experiences and no one else's. This (as is usually the case) means that a large demographic of people are listening to a very small demographic of people in order to formulate an opinion on a playing experience they have yet to...well, experience. Allow me to thus add fuel to the fire in one way or another, and give my sweeping opinion on the MW2 scene.

Is the game good? You bet. There, now that that's out of the way I can move on. Oh, you want me to elaborate? Fine...

If you played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, then you pretty much completely understand everything that there is to understand about MW2. MW2 takes all of the ideas that were initially established in CoD4, expands upon them, elaborates them, makes them prettier, and then gives them back to you for $60 more of your money. Is that worth it to you? I wouldn't say it was worth it to me, but my 48+ hours of playtime so far would beg to differ.

The graphics are better, which is a given. The multiplayer has more game modes and options, which is a given. There are more guns, which is a given. And the single player is way more out there with oodles more "offensive" material, which, again, is a given. This game is the definition of a sequel. It stays within its predefined skeletal structure, but adds a lot more meat to those bones. So, now that we have managed to cover exactly what all other reviews have covered within two paragraphs (ha!), let's move on to where everyone's panties are in bunches. Bunches in people's crotches. Uncomfortable bunches.

Bunches.

Anyways, the multiplayer. If you've played the Xbox 360 version of this game, ignore everything I'm about to type, because your multiplayer experience is the same as Halo 3, CoD4, and probably a zillion other 360 multiplayer shooters out there. You pay your $50/yr for decent multiplayer service, and that's what you get.

But us PC players who like to play their shooters the real way (read: keyboard and mouse) kind of really have the shit end of the stick a little bit. But here's the thing...for about a week before buying this game I read...and read...and read about all the problems this game has with multiplayer. Forum posts, reddit comments, editorials, you name it, all blasting the multiplayer for the PC. Saying that it's ruining PC gaming...that this is just the start. That after Activision sees the revenue from this game on the PC, they'll understand that PC gamers just don't give two shits about their online experiences anymore, and games will now be just as "broken." Yet I bought it anyway like everyone else.

But is it really that broken? In a word: no.

Now, now. Don't get me wrong, I think that the system they have implemented is full of problems, and those problems are fairly consistent. But no where near the nightmare that everyone was lead to believe (or at least the one that I was lead to believe). Here's where the problem started: no dedicated servers. Infinity Ward (the developers) decided that, for some reason, PCs should now become Xbox 360's and no longer give you a list of servers to choose from. Thus they implemented a system that chooses a host at the start of every game, and that host (a player IN that game) then becomes essentially a temporary server for that game (and maybe the next, and the next). That might sound okay in theory, but if for some reason the game chooses that one guy on the planet that still uses fucking dial up, or that other dude playing in the most north eastern tip of the US, or that little kid who's trying to play this game on his mom's 5-year-old Dell Inspiron desktop, everyone is pretty much screwed.

Dedicated servers were/are a benefit because they have excellent internet connections. They are localized, too, to an extent. So if you're on the east coast, there's a good chance you can find a dedicated server that's on the east coast, too, and you've got yourself some smooth sailing ahead. Or, if you're playing with friends across the country, you can all find a server that's in-between everyone, and everyone can have decent connections. It was simple to navigate, and a system that's been around for a very long time. And if you all found a server you liked, you could just add it to a list of favorites, and sleep easy knowing that when you woke up at 2 in the afternoon to start your next 14-hour long gaming session you had a safe, happy place to go.

Also, dedicated servers have admins. Admins can ban people...people who cheat, or, as I like to call them, people who like to fuck cacti for pleasure. These cacti fuckers are always a problem in games...but if you played on a decent dedicated server with a decent community, there was a good chance there'd always be an admin in the server to ban these people.

But alas, all of this is gone in MW2. So, in theory, you would expect games to be slower than the slowest shit on the roughest ground that's as flat a paraplegic's ass. You'd also expect everyone to be fucking cacti because on the internet, everyone is a total, total asshole. But you know what? That isn't true.

The game's hit detection (when the game determines you hit someone with your bullet/knife and where) is local, meaning on your computer. So, unless the game connection is terrible, things are pretty smooth. I've played a good deal of games with easily over 140 ping and been fine. How often are game connections really, really bad? Not often. In those 48+ hours I've spent with the game online, I'd probably say a really shitty connection has happened maybe 20-30 times. That's less than 2% of the time. I can live with that.

If the game's host leaves, the game picks a new one. This means the game pauses for at most 20 seconds (though usually around 10), and then goes right back to where it was. I haven't seen a problem with this yet, though I'm positive that problems can easily come to fruition (someone leaves, the game picks a new host, that person leaves, game picks a new host that has a shitty computer, etc.).

But the cactus fuckers are legitimately the most irritating and prevalent annoyance. There are hackers...lots of them. And because of this, everyone showing any amount of skill raises suspicion. You're almost guaranteed to come across either a wall-hacker (someone using a hack to allow them to see through walls, and thus enemy positions) or an aim botter (someone using a hack that automatically aims--and sometimes fires--their gun at enemies' heads) at least once per play session. And because there are no admins, these people often do not get banned. I say "often" because technically the game uses Steam's "VAC" system to weed out hackers...but how reliable VAC is and how soon after a detected hack it bans an account is unknown. I'd say it isn't too great a system.

What does this all boil down to, then? Well, the game is great...the multiplayer is fun to play, but there are problems surrounding that experience. Is the game as broken as everyone has been complaining? No. It just isn't. Infinity Ward's match making system allows for quick-starting games that you can easily set up with friends, assuring full games every time paired with a good variety of gameplay modes (most of which were already there in CoD4, but whatever). That really isn't a bad thing. Want to play Headquarters Pro? You'll be in a game in seconds...no server hunting required. Not that "server hunting" was any bit of a difficult process to begin with, but...a positive is still a positive.

Besides, if you want to play the new CoD on a PC, you don't have much of a choice, do you? I bought the game because I have friends to play with, and I like to have fun with cool people (you do want to be cool, too, don't you?). If you're all by yourself, then maybe this game isn't for you. Or maybe you should look into fucking a cactus.

I do think that this is ultimately a step in the wrong direction for PC games, though. If I wanted to play a console game, I'd buy a console game. This game feels the same (it even has the same price), but with a different control scheme. Infinity Ward, it seems, was lazy. They could have easily implemented the same server system in CoD4, but also allowed the quickplay party system that's in the game now, if they wanted to. It wouldn't have been difficult, especially considering that it's fairly obvious that they just imported a dumbed-down version of Xbox Live's matchmaking system to the PC. This new system is geared to dickhead hackers and frustrating lag issues that honestly shouldn't be there--whether or not they're really prevalent isn't the issue...they should not be there in the first place.

So, that's what I think. And yeah, it's just another opinion to add to the heaping pile of them that already exists, but I think it's been long enough and I've played the game enough to have formulated what I've written...maybe moreso than some of those day-1 reviews. Oh, and even in games where there are multiple cacti-fuckers, I still usually win. So, either the people using the hacks suck (which is why they are using them), or it doesn't really matter that much. I'm going with both.

Till next time.

BFG is amazing.

Fuck you, I know I haven't posted in a million years. I don't really care.

Erm, I mean. Hey! Long time no see! How's it going? Good? Good! Glad to hear it. Still got that birthday card I sent you? No? Oh that's right, people usually throw those out after a week. No, no, I don't care. I understand. What's that? Oh, her. Yeah she's pretty great. I know, I know, one in a million. Uh huh. Well, look, I have a lot of stuff here, and this basket is getting kinda heavy, so... Oh yeah, yeah, just gimmie a call when you're in the area. We'll totally do something. Alright. Later.

Man, that was awkward.

Anyways, let's get to the point. A year ago from this part March I ordered and received a Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2 made by BFG Tech. Yeah, it had just come out and man did I shell out some money for it. But I figured it'd last me a good amount of time, so, whatever. It was a pretty good card, but it started to have some pretty lame issues a few months in. Things would stutter in certain games -- usually flame effects. And those are the best kind of effects, amirite?!

Then games would crash. And then my computer in general would crash. Finally, a month ago, the card made Windows cry, and it no longer would boot with it in there.

So, I figured, "Shit." I figured that not just because the card was shot, but because it wasn't under warranty. See, BFG offers a lifetime warranty, but with this card, you had to register within 30 days of purchase to receive this lifelong treatment. I did not do this because I found the piece of paper telling me so about a week after said 30 day period. Me not being one to cause a fuss (and assuming my card would, ya know, work) shrugged it off and that was that.

Well, it died. I replaced the card thinking I was screwed. Man was I wrong.

I contacted BFG via a friend's suggestion just for the hell of it last week. And they didn't ask any questions and instantly gave me an RMA for my card. I was very impressed. But then it got better. Within 24 hours of receiving my card they had a replacement in the mail for me. But replace it they did not simply do. Oh no. I got a Geforce GTX 285 as a replacement. That, ladies and gentlemen, is almost the best card that Nvidia currently makes. And, it's a pretty significant upgrade. All for free. Amazing.

So, if you want to buy a graphics card, buy from BFG. Cause if it breaks, they'll give you a better card. And if it's out of warranty, they'll help you anyway. They're fast. They're just...just wonderful. I was floored. I only wish I were getting paid to type what I am right now. But whatever.

At any rate, maybe I'll post here again, but I don't know. I don't think anyone reads this anymore. If you do, speak up! I'll give you hugs via words. Or something.

So, let's talk about L4D2.

E3 has come and gone. Last year, I talked about how such a venue seemed mostly useless, especially because of the downfall of it's presentation. But alas, just when everyone thought it was over, the old skool E3 of yesteryear stormed back on the scene with its booth babes and "huge" announcements and expensive party atmosphere. Did it work? Well, in a word, yeah.

The coverage of E3 has been enormous, and with good reason. Hell, Nintendo actually managed to announce things people care about! But I digress from this post's title.

Valve, arguably one of the best developers in video games (up there with Blizzard, I'd say), announced Left 4 Dead 2 at this year's E3, and it pissed some people off. Did it piss me off? No, not really. I was surprised, though. Valve, like Blizzard, doesn't do fast sequels. Even the Half Life 2 episodes took longer than a year between each release, and those certainly aren't to be considered "sequels". At least not in a full-form, anyway.

Valve's forums erupted with anger from gamers claiming that Valve has betrayed them, with players accusing Valve of undercutting them by undercutting the original L4D. Valve told the gaming community that they would be supporting and updating L4D for a long, long time, much like Team Fortress 2, which, through constant free content-adding updates, has proven that such a strategy would pay off quite nicely. So, why change it? The answer is probably something like "because they can." L4D generated a good deal of money for Valve, so why wouldn't they want to produce a sequel, which in turn would generate more money?

Oh, right, that whole "promise" thing.

Let's look at how L4D has done with it's content-adding-ness:

1 Major update.

...And that's it. Hrm. Well, surely that update contained a variable shitload of content, yes?

Added 2 Versus maps and Survival Mode.

..oh. Well, gosh, that kind of does suck, doesn't it? Unless those Versus maps were new experiences...

The Versus Maps are "Dead Air" and "Death Toll".

...Wait, the maps that should have been in Versus when the game was released? God damnit! Survival Mode better be awesome..

Survival Mode puts players in the various "crescendo" moments that the normal maps contain, only the zombies do not stop coming until everyone dies. Difficulty increases the longer you are able to stay alive, with games rarely lasting longer than 10 minutes. Also, there is a new map for this mode, the "Lighthouse."

...But the Lighthouse map isn't a full, new map?

No.

And isn't that kind of gameplay already in Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty: World at War (with Nazi zombies for some reason)?

Yes.

So, let me get this straight...we got two maps we technically already had (and arguably should have had from the start), and then a new mode that's technically in other games and is just an extension of moments in the game already. That, and there's the fact that the new mode will always end in failure, no matter how great a team of players you have with you. So, if one were to be an over-the-top critic/douchebag, one could say that the only "new" content that was given is everlasting failure, and Valve calls this an update?

Yes.

Cool, I'm going to stop conversing with myself now.

Granted, I don't completely stand behind everything I just wrote there, but I can (obviously) see where people would get upset. Valve has always been considered a beacon of hope when it comes to post-release DLC, showing that if you do something well and make it free, people will continue to buy your game well after it's release because of the free goodies. And so we come back to the question "why are they changing this?"

I think that L4D might have been a sort of experiment. Valve had this great idea for a game, but it had never been done before. And though they could bank on selling the game based sheerly on the Valve brand, I don't think they wanted to (and it probably would have been stupid to do so). So, they made this game, and put pretty much what they wanted to put into it, and what they did release was an extremely polished starter for what they ultimately would have liked to do in the first place, which is L4D2. Would people be able to deal with a purely co-op experience on the internet, land of overwhelming asshats? Would players enjoy doing essentially the same things over and over again, only with a few minor differences in enemy and item placement? Would the AI Director actually be decent, or a pile of crap? Well, they now have their answers.

But does this mean that they couldn't simply update L4D with improvements that would reflect their newly acquired knowledge? Surely they could add new maps, characters, content, etc. without a full-on sequel. After all, they did say that's pretty much what they'd be doing.

Honestly, I don't know, because I'm not Valve. But they're walking on thin ice. They have, however, asked us to trust them, and I think they might have earned a little trust from us. They have from me, anyway. Besides, there are many ways that they can approach this whole sudo-fiasco with intelligence. There's no reason why they couldn't combine the games a-la-Rock Band 2, yes? Why not allow all L4D content to be accessible from within L4D2? That way, if they still are going to be releasing additional content for L4D, those who have the sequel can enjoy everything at the same time, seamlessly. Just something to think about.

But, taking a look at what's promised within L4D2 (entirely new location, new survivors, new weapons, new zombies, new special zombies, new crescendo moments...) I'd say yeah, there's enough there for a sequel. Maybe not a $50 sequel, but at least a $30 kind of thing that merges with the original content. But hey, you know people will buy it anyway, regardless of what it really is or how it's really done. So maybe all this hub-bub is pointless.

But maybe it isn't.

Many things coming soon.

I have entered the realm of motivation via a bet yet again, and thus must complete 4 games by July 11th, 2009. Therefore, I will actually be writing things here again! Horray!

Stay tuned...

Okay, I need some motivation.

Games I have started, but not finished:

Killzone 2
Resistance 2
Valkyria Chronicles
Final Fantasy X
Call of Duty: World at War
Ratchet and Clank Future: The Quest for Booty
Bionic Commando: Rearmed (stuck on the last level)
Megaman 9 (stuck on the last boss)
Dead Space
GTA IV

So, anyone have any ideas on how to tackle this problem?

Oh, hi there.

Yesterday I finished up Red Alert 3. Oh, what's that? I haven't posted in a while and how could I just start right back up as if nothing had happened? Well, nothing had happened. Actually, I got a bunch of games for Xmas, and simply have been playing those. One of which was RA3.

So, how does it stack up to other RTS games out there? It's fun as hell, that's for damn sure. But in its over-the-top zaniness comes the price of gaming longevity. The game is very fast paced, and, much like C&C3, online matches are more than capable of ending in under 5 minutes. For some people, that might be just fine. But I like to think about my RTS games a little bit more. And for me, RTS games are really all about the multiplayer. That's where they shine; seeing people utilize the game in newer and more interesting ways, implementing strategies you would never see outside of such an environment.

And it's a shame, too, because a lot of good thought was placed in this game. Pretty much every unit has a useful secondary attack function, for example. Take the Devastator Tank that the Soviets have: it can either fire its double barrels (ho-hum), or engage a tractor beam that pulls enemy tanks into giant metal-shredding gears, destroying them shortly thereafter (!). Each of the three factions has its own unique building process, too--though not as diverse as, say, Starcraft or Warcraft 3. The Allies have to wait until their structure is fully built before placing it, the Russians can start building on the ground immediately, but their building is vulnerable until completed, and the Japanese can build anywhere, but must unpack their building via mini-MCV-like things.

Like I said before, things happen very quickly, though. And like most things in life, when stuff happens too fast, it leaves those involved disappointed. Many times during the single-player campaign I would attempt to strategically construct an army, only to have it wiped out by sheer brute force not more than 10 seconds into my invasion. This meant that several times during play I was forced to simply build a massive unstoppable force of quantity, rather than quality. That kind of crap, to me, is an RTS no-no. There are the basic unit counters, though--artillery is powerful but vulnerable, tanks have no anti-air, blah, blah. Outside of that, though, the unit countering isn't anything compared to the intensity of Warcraft 3. Units have a minimal Bar O' Health above them, but no hit points by which to compare to other units. Damage functions the same way, where you just have to figure "big laser beam must make stuff go boom better than missile."

All of this is geared for the game to be, essentially, a run-and-gun RTS, if such a thing can exist. C&C3 did this, too, and I hated it for it. It was a great game, but I can't remember the last time I played it. When you're forcing players to race to end-game units because that's where the key to victory is...I don't know. It seems kind of easy. But it's weird, because the thought and unit variety put into this game begs the player not to do such a baseless strategy. I'll just have to play a few more games online and see what happens, I guess.

Oh, and let me just say that graphically, it's beautiful. Everything in the game is very pretty, especially the water effects--not only are the physics nifty as hell, but the water reflects everything in a spectacular fashion that, during a heated sea battle, lights up the whole experience. Even ships, when they kick the bucket, sink beneath the surface and stay there for the rest of the battle (and of course they are distorted accordingly depending on the waves, etc.).

Simply put: RA3 is a good RTS. It isn't great, but it's fun enough to be more than worth the purchase. I sunk well over 20 hours into the single player campaign on the Hard difficulty. The missions are varied nicely, and really make the game shine strategically. If multiplayer could only be like the campaigns, it'd probably launch the game into greatness. But no one wants that kind of constraint in multiplayer. So, whatever. Also, there are plenty of boobs in this game. Plenty (see above picture).



Moving on, I also finished up Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for the PS3. Wonderfully fun game. It played just like the R&C games on the PS2, but with much prettier graphics. The game is pretty easy, but it's supposed to just be stupid fun, with lots of shooting crap with wacky guns. It is this to a T. Also: you can throw disco balls at enemies which force them to dance like John Travolta before you annihilate them. Pure genius.

I'm working on Valkyria Chronicles and Resistance: Fall of Man, too. I have a lot more to play through beyond those, too. I love videogames. Till next time!

And a year ends...

...and I'm a bit older. My wonderfully beautiful girlfriend is here with me, and I am now 23 years old. It's been a good year, I'd say. Hopefully this keeps on, and I keep posting here to the (I assume) very small volume of people that may or may not actually read this "blog" (I hate that term).

I've been playing Left 4 Dead on a massive scale thus far (over 35 hours since I got it on Xmas). And will be discussing it at length in the future. So, for now, Happy New Year, and may gaming keep flowing through your veins and hearts for years to come.

ggkthxbye.

THREE!

Last night, at around 2 AM, the ending cutscene of Twilight Princess concluded, and the words "The End" boldly, yet still somehow subtly, displayed on the left side of my screen. I dropped the Wiimote and nunchuck, satisfied.

It took me, as I've said several times, about 2 years to finish that game, and I finally did it. Total play time (which does count game pauses, sadly, so this is somewhat inflated) was over 41 hours. God damn. I mean, you have to figure about 2 hours for every dungeon, and there are, what, 12? 14? of them. Plus all the shit in between them -- all the running around, talking to people, cutscenes, minigames, and general being fucking lost, which comes with most games. I didn't get all the pieces of heart. Nor did I get the third armor type, which, from what I understand, allows Rupees to be subtracted instead of hearts when Link takes damage. So there's easily another 5 hours to be played if one were going for perfection, but, ya know, fuck that. I think I died less than 10 times the whole game, though I'm not sure. Maybe less than 5.

Is the game hard? Well, that depends on what you would consider "hard." The game challenges you to think differently, but none of the puzzles are painfully over your head (coughOcarana'sWaterTemplecough). The game does a great job of consistently allowing the player to feel like they're accomplishing something. Progress is always made. It's really an excellent feeling, and one that doesn't occur all that often in gaming experiences. Though Nintendo is, I'd say, one of the best developers that can pull it off. But if you're one of those gamers that can't really grasp lateral thinking or any form thereof, Twilight Princess might make your brain cry a little. Just a little, though.

Comparing it to Ocarina of Time is...well...it's something I wouldn't really feel comfortable doing. But what the hell, I'll do it anyway. This game does some things better, and some things worse. The places this story goes are definitely more interesting. The items are more diverse. And the size of everything is monumental compared to Ocarina. But Ocarina has all the elements of classic Zelda games perfectly in place, whereas Twilight Princess simply does not. Towns and people from the earlier games are here, but it's all so very new that the nostalgia that Ocarina's same towns and people had is either lost or overlooked.

Also, you don't have to turn into a fucking dog in Ocarina. I don't think there's a single person that really liked those parts. Sure, they were fascinating and had some nifty puzzle elements in them (dominated primarily with the "sense" ability), but I never really looked forward to the next part of the game where I might have to be a dog. Or wolf. Wait, no, "Sacred Beast" is the term the game uses. Whatever.

It's a great game though, and if you own a Wii and actually use it to play games (something I'm not sure people know it's designed to do -- there are better dust-gathering paperweights out there) you should have this game. It's easily one of the best games on the system, which, considering it was a launch title, is pretty fucking awesome.

Now where's my beer; I earned it. Also, I need to do more of these bets because they force me to finish games.

This takes me back.

Last week a strange but beautiful coincidence took place in my life. I found myself, late Saturday night, sifting through various "Let's Play" videos, which for the uninformed are full videos (some with audio commentary) of members from the Something Awful forums playing through entire games. One game that I actually watched all videos of, back-to-back, was a play-through of I Wanna Be The Guy, an impossibly, hair-tearingly, controller-smashingly, screaming curse words...ily...difficult PC game that pays homage to all the old NES games that were just as hard. You can download it here, if you dare (I think I played it for about 25 minutes before deciding there were better things to do).

Anywho, watching such a stupidly hard game got me thinking about those games I used to play a long time ago. See, I never had an NES...or an SNES, Genesis, etc. My parents' logic was "You have a computer, so, just play games on that. Computer > than NES, et al. anyways." So, though my Commodore 64 did kick ass, I missed out on a good chunk of super-hard games. But, I when I was 5 years old, I was given a Game-Boy. And eventually, I got Megaman for it.

The hours I poured into that small, small game cannot be measured. I mean, the game was hard enough for a full-grown teenager at the time, and I was maybe 6 or 7 when I played through it. I remember writing down the password grids after each finished boss. I remember dread washing over me every time I lightly brushed into the evil, evil spikes and Megaman burst into a bunch of pulsing circles.

So, the next morning, I said told my girlfriend about the I Wanna Be The Guy game, and then my recollection of ye olde Megaman on the Game-Boy. I even fired up an NES emulator to show her what I was talking about. Her first response was "Wow, that's really hard to see," even with full-screen on my 19-inch LCD monitor. Oh Game-Boy, the youth today do not know how easy they have it.

I never did beat Megaman. I got all the way to the final level -- the Wily level -- and died at the final boss battle. I gave up after that, knowing I'd never be able to get that far again.

The day after I talked to my girlfriend, she presented me with a hoodie with Megaman's extra life sprite blown up on the front and words "The Man" below it. All I could do was laugh and say, about a dozen times, "this is awesome." I then declared, "I need to finish Megaman, goddamnit!"

But I wanted more of a challenge. I wanted such a blisteringly hard game that an hour's time would only amount to one level completed. I wanted to feel, every time a boss was beaten, that I accomplished something inhuman. Long ago, this is the feeling that older games were able to bestow into the hearts of every gamer. Games today really don't have this same feeling, and if they do, people complain of the difficulty. Seriously, grow some balls -- we had it a lot worse off 20 years ago.

So, I got Megaman 9 from the PSN. And holy shit, this game is hard. But in a very, very good way. Every mistake you make (usually resulting in death) forces you to learn and adapt yourself to perfection. After 20 or so run-throughs of Magma-Man's level, you'll know what I mean. After I beat the first boss, my yells of jubilation were clearly those of decades past. And yeah, it took me an over an hour just to finish one level. My thumbs kinda hurt, and my hands were clammy with concentration. It felt wonderful.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed projects a similar feeling, too. But Megaman 9's NES-look and completely old-skool atmosphere completes the experience. I Wanna Be The Guy pushes the feeling so far above both of these games that even finishing a part of one level brings great joy, but IWBTG isn't Megaman, so, pfft.

I have less than two weeks to finish another game. I'll do it, no problem. I've decided to finish Twilight Princess. My fancy-shmancy new Wii HD cables will allow this to happen smoothly (yay 480p! ::sigh::). But if I finish Megaman 9 somehow, that'll count, too.

Two.

Well this makes two games finished towards beer. That's right, I got Crysis back last xmas and I just finished it now. You got a problem with that?

I didn't think so.

Why did it take so damned long? Well, there's several reasons. For one, I formatted my computer shortly after I started playing it and, for some reason, wasn't able to transfer my saved games over. So! I had to start it all over again. That took effort, considering I was several hours into the game.

For two, the story is pretty lame/generic. Very generic. Super war-hungry general that wants to use nukes despite overwhelming scientific reasoning as to why that would be him an asswipe failure? Check. Hot scientist chick? Check. Guy that "dies" early on but "magically" comes back later, complete with line, "You think I'd be killed that easy" (or something like that)? Check. Crazy aliens that look like the Sentinels from The Matrix? You betcha! If only there were Nazis instead of North Koreans (today's "modern Nazi"), it'd be the focal point of awesome. But what can ya do.

For three, the graphics are irritatingly pretty. I wanted to play this game at high settings -- I really did -- but despite 4 gigs of RAM and a Geforce 9800GX2, it would choke at points, and I demand smoothness, goddamnit. So every time I'd think about playing, I'd know that it just wouldn't look as good as it could, and I'd feel gypped (and somewhat lonely).

But I overcame these hurdles, and finished it. Man, that ending boss fight is fucking stupidly difficult. Though, for what its worth, ending boss battles should be difficult, and some games have really lost their way with that concept (I'm looking at you, Doom 3). Of course, the game was set up with a sequel in mind, a la Assassin's Creed, but that didn't bother me, because the sequel is already out. Or the expansion pack. Or whatever it is. Warhead. I might get that someday, but not anytime soon.

I probably had about 6 hours or so left from when I last touched this game, back...in...the summer? Something? I'd say total play time was something around the 10-14 hour mark. Considering I played it mostly on hard (and died a fucking lot...so much so that it stopped being fun and I switched to normal near the end. Seriously, it took more bullets to kill the Korean assholes without super-fantastic armor -- see above picture -- than for them to kill me) I'd say that isn't too shabby.

So what's next? Dunno. Something totally awesome, I'm sure. Maybe I'll finish Zelda. Wouldn't that be cool...only two years overdue, right? That's not too bad, is it? Guys? ..guys?

The Comparison Game

MTV sent me a Rock Band 2 bundle (!!!), but not before I had already purchased Guitar Hero World Tour -- don't worry, I only grabbed the game with guitars to replace a broken one, not the full package (I have enough plastic instruments, thank you very much). And now that I've spent way too much time playing RB2, I think it's time to compare them in my own words.

Both games do a lot of things right, and I will say right now that if the world were perfect, the two development studios would combine themselves into a mass of dense, pure awesome and all music games would be absolutely perfect. So, let's start with GHWT.

GHWT is still a Guitar Hero game, hands down. Yes, they have drums and singing and the obligatory bass, but really the only instrument that holds all the fun and fame is the guitar. The songs clearly focus on this because, let's be real here, Hendrix was not known for his drummer. Nor is Ozzy. Nor is...Sting? So, with that said, the guitar is done well, as usual, but that was to be expected, right? So let me explain why the drums suck ass in this game. Bear with me.

Apparently the people at Neversoft just aren't on the same (read: logical) page as the guys at Harmonix. It was nice of them to make the game rearrange the drum track and condense it down to 4 lanes instead of the game's standard 5, but even still, the drums are just mapped poorly. For one thing, you will hardly hit the green pad. I don't really know why, but that pad isn't a crash cymbal, ever. The condensing method they seem to have implemented goes as such: all yellow, raised cymbals of the GHWT kit are pushed into the yellow pad of the RB2 kit, and all the raised, orange cymbals are pushed into the blue pad. Okay, that's fine. But it makes certain songs unplayable on any kit (on expert).

"Everlong," by the Foo Fighters, has a very fast, constant high hat beat with an off-note hitting the snare every so often. The song is in both games. On RB2, the beat's mapped with the red pad (the left) getting the high hat, and the yellow (on the right) getting the snare -- this makes logical sense, because on a normal, right-handed kit the high hat is to the left of the snare. But in GHWT they have stuck to their guns with those raised cymbal things and reversed logic itself, making, for a right-handed drummer, the song impossible to play because the mappings are reversed. I understand their urge to be "different" with those raised cymbals, but when you're so gung-ho to your own design that you lose fun-ness... that's just, well, stupid. Case in point: I was able to finish the song in GHWT with lefty flip turned on, but not on the standard mapping. Hm.

The song list in GHWT isn't quite as good, either. Sure, they have the Doors and Hendrix and Tool (one of my favorite bands ever, and essentially the reason I grabbed this game), but aside from those few bright spots, I really have no desire to play the other songs. RB2 has me constantly wanting to play almost every song on there, with only a few falling (very) short of awesome (The Go-Go's? Ew.). And the virtually recreated GH artists and kind of cool and all, I guess, but I kind of question why they are there outside of being some kind of marketing stunt. Or, maybe to make up for GH3's kinda "meh" offering.

They have Billy Corgan for...one song, which is also in RB2. Ozzy is there as a singer (naturally), but any song outside of an Ozzy song puts him in a very, very weird place (he sings Dream Theater at the end...huh?). Travis Barker is there, again for...one song (which is downloadable in RB2). The chick from Paramore is there for some reason (again, one song). Sting plays bass for his single song offering (fun fact: I didn't know he played bass before playing this game), and no one cares. And Hendrix is awkwardly brought back from the dead for this game.

There are things GHWT does improve on, though. The sustained notes are a blast to come across, allowing you to hold one note down but still play other, single notes at the same time. And the open bass notes (where you only hit the strum bar, sans buttons) is really quite cool. RB2 has its new things, too -- drum solos and hammer-on chords. Both are welcome, but if all of these features were in both games, it'd be the best.

Now, the little, little things:

-GHWT loads between songs faster than RB2, but you can only make a 6 song setlist.
-The singer in GHWT's stage performance does a lot more than RB2's, but their drummer looks like a lost and scared child at a kit for the first time (still!)... ..or some kind of mentally challenged robot, if such a thing could exist (something that makes Travis Barker appear hilarious when he's on the kit).
-RB2's drummer animations are fucking amazing (still), and I will never understand how they got them to be so fluid (and I'm guessing Neversoft won't, either).
-GHWT offers much more song-breakdown stats between songs than RB2 -- WHY...WHY can't I at least know my note streak between songs, RB2? WHY!? You do it for individual songs, but not setlists? The hell? Ugh.
-The tour mode in RB2 still shits all over GHWT's, which is essentially a bunch of quick setlists. RB2 offers challange tours and "battle of the bands," too, which are pretty great, though I question their longevity.
- GHWT's "new" guitar has a slider bar thing, that (supposedly) lets you slide up and down notes to play them in certain parts of songs. This mechanic is broken and stupid. Not only is it awkward as shit to try and quickly use, it doesn't work nearly as well as you would think, with lag and inaccuracies making super-hard solos impossible to use it with. RB2's mini-button thing is still kinda weird, too, but at least it's usable.
- GHWT's menus aren't nearly as pleasant as RB2's. Song selection is bulky to say the least, and just doesn't feel...clean. RB2 has album art, a clean interface, and plenty of breathing room.
-And then, finally, there's RB2's content...all songs from RB1 can be transferred, and there's something like 350-400 songs available to download online. GHWT can. Not. Touch that. They never will, either. Oh, you have that shitty new Metallica album? Go fuck yourselves, I have motherfucking RUSH. And Foo Fighters. And The Red Hot Chili Peppers. They have nothing on the Rock Band guys. Their weekly song additions are the best, most awesome thing to ever happen to videogames. There, I said it.

What it breaks down to is this: GHWT is, like I said before, a Guitar Hero game, where you pretty much only want to play the guitar. It does some cool things, but really those things only make you wish RB2 had them, because that's the game you're going to be playing more. Everything about RB2 is better than what was offered in RB1, too. Everything. If something bothered you about RB1, it was probably fixed in 2. So, just go buy RB2, it will make you happier. It will make you enjoy life. It will make you smile. I promise.

One Down.

A few weeks ago a good friend of mine and I placed a bet that I couldn't finish 3 games by X-mas. The victor would receive a 6-pack of excellent beer (though what that beer will be remains a mystery). So, I have started this journey by completing Fallout 3.

Let me start talking about this game at the same place that a lot of people seem to start: is it Oblivion with guns? Well, if you strip the story away, the atmosphere, the physical environment, and the characters, pretty much yes, it is. You have the same kind of enemies, who act essentially the same way, the same "I'M GOING TO TALK TO YOU SO ZOOM INTO YOUR FACE" speech system, and the same feeling when walking around in the D.C. wasteland as you did in Oblivion's Cyrodiil. Of course, whether or not this is a bad thing depends on whether or not such things annoyed you about Oblivion. They didn't annoy me, so, I was fine.

But adding back on all of the attributes I previously mentioned places this game in an entirely different realm that is not only brilliantly crafted, but a blast to sift through. I simply love the 1950's-future future that's in the game. Now, I didn't play the other installments of Fallout, but I did read on them extensively so to completely understand the universe I was getting myself into. Everything about this game is fascinating. You will find yourself saying "that's cool" pretty much constantly, which, aside from being a great way to pull you into the game's offered experience, really shows how much thought was put into this installment.

And even though I beat the game, I still know that there were probably several hours of other side quests I could have gone through. And if I wanted to explore everything, whew, that'd take me forever. This is, after all, a life-sucking RPG at its core.

The notable addition to the game's FPS nature is the inclusion of the "V.A.T.S." (Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System). This was something I thought would get annoying very fast. Essentially, you hit a button and time stops. Then, your view will zoom in on an enemy in front of you, and you will be presented with the option of firing at any of its various body parts (torso, arms, legs, head). Your decision will most likely be based on which part you have the best chance of hitting, which the game aids you with by telling you what percent chance you have to hit each area. Each attack launched on that area uses up "action points" which then need to be recharged before you can use the V.A.T.S. again. Oh, and the attacks are done in super slo-mo for maximum awesome. See how that can get annoying if you use it over and over and over?

Well, it didn't. Not for me, at least. There's something extremely satisfying about blasting a creature's face off in slow-motion that never seems to get old.

The real prize of this game are the options given to the player. You can be pretty much whoever you want to -- from Jesus to Satan. Want to kill everyone and wreak havoc everywhere? Go for it! Want to help everyone out? You can! Want to help most people but every once in a while shoot a shop owner? Kinda weird, but, sure! The options are yours and the story you can create has a ton of possibilities. This play through I found myself being nice to everyone and by the end of the game I was a "Wasteland Savior" -- like I said, Jesus. Maybe next time, if I go through it again, I'll be a total asshole.

Simply put, this game is great. Though I wouldn't recommend getting it if you don't like the color gray. There's a shitload of that here. Like, it's everywhere. I understand that the post-apocalyptic world is supposed to be dreary, but damn. Any other shortcomings can be overlooked. There were several times that the game sucked me in and I didn't want to stop playing not because the gun play was excellent, but because the particular story I was following at the time was so damn intriguing.

So, what's next? It's 12:40 on a Saturday...hm. I don't know. Someone leave a comment with what to play next: Metroid Prime 3, Wipeout HD, or Crysis. Eh, I'll probably just end up coming to a decision on my own.

To quote a reddit comment

Dear Rest of the World,

We didn't fuck it up.



Signed,

America

On The Rain-Slick Precipice of AWESOME.

When the announcement that Penny Arcade's RPG was going to be released for the PSN I knew my patience had paid off. And last Thursday, that saved time was rewarded. Not only did I buy the monumental first episode, but I finished it in two sittings. How's that for never finishing my games?! BOOYAH!

I rather like this particular iteration of episodic content. Getting an extension of an excellent game every couple of months provides a somewhat consistent, warm feeling to the recipient. This is how you do episodic games. Half Life 2 has it all ass backwards, which has been addressed several times (the best, I'd say, by Yahtzee) -- releasing a game that only extends the story by a few hours every year or so doesn't make any sense at all. It's like a long-distance relationship with a whore -- you hardly see her, and sure, there's sex when you do, but it just doesn't make you feel good when you pay for it.

I like analogies.

Episodic gaming is something that's desperately trying to find its place in the gaming community, and I think there's a right and a wrong way to do it. The wrong way would be Valve's way of doing it. They release an episode without having the next completed. That's just lazy. If a TV show recorded and released and episode each week, the show would feel rushed and production would be crappy. Shit, I think I just described soap operas. Hm, well, the point remains. So, to combat the high probability of crappiness, Valve "takes its time" between episodes in order to release quality instead of, well, quantity. But isn't the point of episodic games the quantity (coupled with established quality)? Instead of releasing just one long, solid game, you release several short, solid games in the same universe? I understand that Valve may really, really like its HL2 plot and so want to keep it rolling for as long as possible, but releasing episodes of games in the same time that whole other games could be made is more of a gimmick. They might as well just call their episodes what they should be called -- expansion packs.

Then again, expansion packs tend to have additional weapons, characters, and environments, and while HL2's episodes have new characters, it's mostly lacking with the other two. Whatever.

Penny Arcade has done more than just properly release content, though. Their genre is much more adaptive to episodic releases. RPG's generally take large amounts of time to finish, so with an episode of an RPG, you're probably going to get something like 6-8 hours of solid gameplay out of it. FPS's are quick and action packed. A run-through of full FPS games can take only 6 hours if you know what you're doing.

The game itself is brilliantly funny, which is it's biggest strength. As an RPG, it has that real-time-combat style that I've actually never played before (but I think was in Final Fantasy X or something -- I don't know, I hate the FF games), so the combat is surprisingly not-boring (like other RPG's can be). The game just made me want to finish it. The humor alone was a major factor there. I mean c'mon, one of the enemy types -- clowns -- bleed rainbow-colored blood when you hurt them. That's fucking great.

When episodic gaming is done correctly, it really is a great idea. You get the feeling of a new game with each addition, you don't have to devote a week of your life just to finishing a game, and the injection of pleasure arrives at fair and consistent intervals. Good shit.



I also got a new TV. A 42" LCD TV. It has 4 HDMI ports. 1080p. It's a Philips. I love my Playstation 3 right now. I also got Dead Space. And Fallout 3. And Wipeout HD. I think it's time to make a video gaming schedule, because I have quite a catalog to finish before X-mas. And goddamnit, I'm gonna finish them all.

Impressions/discussion of Dead Space and Fallout 3 next time (maybe tomorrow? probably not).

Someone Cares...

A long time ago -- and I mean long time ago -- I would often, while spending time with a friend of mine who has long moved on to I-don't-know-what, dream of creating a video game. We had ideas, or what would appear to be the illusion of ideas, and with these we would paint on the canvas of imagination. At the time our obsession was a game called Total Annihilation. Some of you might know it as that game the guy that did Supreme Commander made first (Total Annihilation is still better than Supreme Commander, eye-em-aach-oh). But we were, in our 12-year-old selves, sold on the idea of somehow utilizing that game to create our own story, world, and universe. We even wrote down some unit stats.

Of course, nothing happened. We liked the idea of making the game much more than the work required to actually create it.

Last weekend I played through a good chunk of Timeshift, a game that I believe emulates my youthful ambitions rather nicely. The game is, at times, broken. And at one point in play, it froze -- sound loop and all. I have heard of console games freezing, but honestly, I never experienced it myself without a 5+ hour play session being a major factor. At another point in my time with the game, I got stuck in some corner that, physically speaking, no living thing could possibly have managed in to within the confines of reality.

And the story...the story yearns to be taken seriously. You can feel it. But its holes are so wide, and its delivery so muddled that, while playing, you wonder if the game might just be better without it. At one point a loading screen was used to explain to me who I was and what my character's role in the story was. I'm sorry, but complete characterization for an interactive experience such as a video game cannot be achieved with two sentences.

But the game itself is relatively fun. This is why I look at it the same way as I did that imaginary game concept I had so many years ago. Someone inside Timeshift's development team wanted this game to be something. Someone had an idea for something. But the effort clearly could not soar across the chasm of production. Put bluntly, this game fell short, massively.

There is a consistent feeling of satisfaction when you stop time, run through a landscape of suspended raindrops, blast three enemies in the face with a shotgun, and resume normal time to watch them all fall down together. Or, after an enemy throws a grenade your way, reversing time to dodge its destruction altogether.

A game like this makes me wonder if my assumptions are correct -- if there is honest passion buried someone in the development team, but it just isn't enough to make a full artistic construction. What does such a person feel after their dream is released and sold unfinished? Like publishing a book with chapters 4-8 lacking vowels? I know I would feel an overwhelming sense of disappointment in myself. Yes, maybe my bills will still be paid at the end of the month, but the money used to do so would feel dirty. Or, in a way, counterfeit.

I understand that companies have deadlines, and the longer a project is development, the more money that company loses until said project is released. I get that. But where is that line drawn for the passionate within the company? I think Blizzard is the best at handling said line's metaphorical existence -- remember their games are always done when they are done. And you know what? They make the best games (or, at the least consistently kick-ass games). I guess that at least seeing your dream realized in even a partial form is better than nothing, but that shouldn't be the accepted way of thinking. If Timeshift were done, and done right -- the way whatever mystery development person really wanted it to be -- I'm sure it would have been awesome.

Artistic ability is always better when given liberal amount of space to work in. The more confined the creator feels, the more rushed, unfinished, and unpolished the end product is going to appear. So I will use my little corner of the internet here to implore video game developers to cater to that guy that wants it done right instead of done fast. It's a fairly well-known demand, but still. Crappy games are still made despite such a phrase's understanding (Haze?). At least Timeshift is good enough to make me want to finish it.


Oh! All this talk just made me think of a game that should be made....okay, hear me out........

I got nothing.

I've finally taught myself photoshop. My first actual effort is above...it's a fictional box art for a fictional game that was for an actual contest on Kotaku. I know I won't win because mine is "serious" or whatever. And Kotaku's elite editors will surely go for the totally retarded for the sake of getting attention. That and I have no confidence in my noobishness. Whatever.

Not much to talk about this week, as I haven't really been playing many games. Rock Band 2 is out and happily being enjoyed by what I hope is millions of faux rockers across the nation. Do I have it? Nah, still waiting on MTV to ship me one pro-bono. Money is extremely tight for me, so I'm planning on finishing the games I still have sitting untouched in my game-rack (Mass Effect, Metroid Prime). And I still haven't finished Twilight Princess, and it's been, what, almost two years? Three? I should be ashamed.

Actually, if I really think about it, there's a good chunk of games I haven't finished. And I probably never will. Which is a shame because most of them I've invested many, many hours into already. This is a problem for me, I guess. Others have talked about this-- I'll call it "syndrome"-- before. Maybe it's because of the amount of games I have. Maybe I just lose interest in trying to complete a 20+ hour game (Usually the unfinished ones are RPGs). Who knows.

I seem to go through gaming phases. For bursts of time I'm zeroed in on one particular game, or, in some cases, genre. Two months ago I played Warcraft III constantly. Now I can't remember the last time I touched it. Nine months ago it was Diablo II. Seven months ago, CoD4. These are games I hardly even think about now. But then, after much time has passed, I find myself back in these games' doorways, broken umbrella in my hand and soaked with rain, begging for another chance. Of course, they always accept me, and hold be tight for another stint.

I still to this day wish I had beaten Dragon Quest VIII. That would have been the first real, solid RPG I have ever beaten. I've blasted through countless shooters...but RPGs require real attention. You dedicate a section of your life to those games. Just once, I want to know what it's like to lose that section for something so monumentally...digital. Hrm.

I don't know. I'll try to play something new this weekend, so that, ya know, I can actually talk about something here next week.

On MMO Fun.

I've been playing around in the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning beta and I must say...bit disappointed. Is it like WoW? Well, sure, pretty much any MMORPG from now on will be in some way. And it is interesting...the new skills, the new game mechanics, the new classes...it all goes to proclaim that though it is like WoW, it's still its own beast. I personally love the atmosphere. There are no gay-looking elves dancing around giant cow-creatures here. Things are always on fire, screams can constantly be heard bellowing across the seared landscape, and the bad guys really like to watch blood flow like ravenous rivers. One thing this game doesn't lack is tone.

But is it fun? Well, it's still an MMORPG, so, whether you think those are fun will heavily bias your opinion. The quests are all still massive grind fests, albeit with a little more flare. But one thing I noticed in my 5+ hours with the game so far is the extreme lack of human interaction. Now, later in the game I'm sure this will be more rampant, but even at the lower levels I expected to see some kind of otherly human presence. The chat airwaves are virtually vacant, and even in towns no one is asking for groups, help, directions -- nothing. No one is selling low-level gear. No one sees that you're doing the same quest as they are and offers help. Once, one time, during a public quest someone decided to make an open group for it. And it was cool and all, but everyone was still stark silent -- like an 8th grade dance where everybody is too awkward to talk to each other.

Will this change with the game's official release? Hopefully, yes. I found it a little disheartening that the public quests -- the new MMORPG additions meant to bring people together -- had little to no effect on doing such a thing outside of slaughtering monsters and waiting for loot. Yes, instances in WoW in can be the same way, but people will at least talk to each other throughout the endeavor. I view MMO's as a different tier of human interaction -- after all, that's essentially what you're paying for with that monthly fee. Sure, the game is kinda fun and all, but really there are other ones out there that offer you more, better, faster, and better-looking rewards for less money. The human interaction is what makes the MMO. Now, this may be somewhat of an "O RLY?!" kind of thing, so just bear with me for a second. Take that same tier, and apply it to other, non-MMO games, and think about which ones are more fun.

Team Fortress 2, with it's team-based gameplay and diverse array of characters (each with a fantastically developed personality) offers one of the best social-rich planes to interact in. Counterstrike is the same way because death is more than a stat penalty -- it (though temporarily) ends the game. Games that offer the slightest bit of originality to the player will often receive the benefit of being the most fun. Which is almost a shame, because games that, mechanic-wise, are really fun can spiral into nothingness because of this lack of diversity and interaction. Warhawk, for the PS3, suffers with this. I think the game is extremely fun. But, again, you're playing with a whole mess of people with no actual interaction there, and, aside from the paint-job of your Warhawk or clothes, everyone really seems the same. Unless everyone has microphones, of course, but that is rarely the case.

I guess, then, if you're going to make a game based around thousands of people being in the same gamespace at the same time, only to have the people not talk to each other, it's going to be somewhat of a problem. But going a step beyond that bit of obviousness, something that makes this interaction even more important is the MMO's lack of player-importance. Let me clarify what that means. In WAR (or WoW, or any number of games like those), you accept a quest to destroy an enemy camp, and rid a friendly city/town of constant murders, rapes, and desecration. You do this, get some XP (maybe an item) and move along. But, if you were to stick around for 4 more minutes, you would watch all of the enemies you just slain respawn and gear up for the next "hero" to come, save the day, and gain the same rewards. Kinda stupid (and exasperating), isn't it?

Now, many would argue that there is no way to overcome this stupidity because so many people play that same game, and, well, how else are they supposed to level up? How else is the story of the game world supposed to unfurl? Okay, those are valid points. But! If you, the player, are forced to accomplish the same extraordinary tasks that thousands before you have just completed, despite the (misleading) veil of worth being placed on such tasks, what, exactly, makes any of this worth the time? Other people. Doing such monotonous crap over and over by yourself borders the realm self-defamation, because ultimately you're unimportant. But with people, it's having a good time. It's socializing. It's accomplishing something as a team. And again, it's this interaction that you pay that monthly fee for.

I think WAR is trying some new ways to push this sense of worth further. The constant sense of war and forever good/evil changing battlefields certainly makes things feel important. And the public quests, in theory, are a great way to bring people together in order to achieve a common goal. But until people step away from that 8th grade awkwardness, help each other, and talk to strangers, these mechanics aren't going to do much. I remember back when I first played WoW (I don't play it anymore), even at a low level people were offering to help me, extending group invites and pointing me it the right directions. These feelings of interaction, although virtual, speak worlds for these games. It's no surprise that games like TF2 manage to tap into this sense of personal teamwork and succeed so well.

People in these respective gamespaces know each other even if they don't, and that's the kind of stuff that games should be known for. Years from now, most people will remember Warhawk for it being a good time, but not so much as being a social bridge. WoW, despite its soul-capturing abilities, will be mostly known as a social continent. I think so, anyway. Hopefully WAR is fun enough to do the same. We'll see.