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