LBJ gets into Ratchet & Clank - Future Tools of Destruction

Well, so, anyway, in other news, now that you mention it,

Oh, whatever.

I beat Ratchet & Clank: Future Tools of Destruction. It was a great fucking game. The environments were various. The puzzles started off easy but got progressively more difficult in interesting ways. Although it is a basic platformer (you go to a planet, explore it, finish an objective, get a new target, and go there) the fact that you are constantly getting new weapons with more and more abilities to unlock varies gameplay in fun ways. My favorite gun ended up being the Mag-net launcher, which holds enemies IN AN ELECTRIC CAGE, shocking them 'till they explode into bolts and raratanium!

I had issue with the fact that there is little incentive to survive except for that fact that once you die, you have to repeat the segment. It made the game really easy and repeating the segment was only really a problem during the last boss fight where at one point, the only way to beat him is to kill him before he kills you. He kept killing me first.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had this difficulty problem too, but that was combined with excessive load times. I should have mentioned that in the other review. The Force Unleashed had loading times to open the fucking menu, and after playing Dead Space (which barely has a menu) I couldn't handle that shit. Ratchet & Clank was very stream-lined. It was much tighter in gameplay than Dead Space and the Force Unleashed, but didn't have their stories. It was funny. It had a great sense of satire with jokes that younger and older audiences would find funny even though the vocab might go over kids' heads sometimes (me too :( I'll never pass the GRE!)

Play that game.

I'm not getting tired of reviewing games, it's just, the more I learn Computer Science, the more I realize how difficult it is to program them to do what you want. Even simple things like "check whether this item is in this list" is a difficult function to program. I wanted to yell at Kotaku for their Dead Space review. One of their Cons was that bad guys couldn't walk through doors, which might be hard to program since, for the most part, the game loads from different places to get the doors and their entranceways. Still, yeah, it would have been much scarier to see one of those fuckers open a door.

So, it's much easier for me to grade a game on its story over its gameplay or it's easier to grade if it's really good but I want better, and so that's why I flipped out on Dead Space, but absolutely loved it, want to play it again but my friend took back his TV.

I really wanted to finish upgrading all the weapons and collecting all the holoplan parts and the gold bolts. I really want to play the PSP Ratchet & Clank, so I can find out what happens to Clank. I wanna go back through and play all the old games to figure out the story more. I have become a R&C fanboy due to this game. It was fucking great! But, in terms of story, it was mostly a fun joke.

Luhluhluhluhluhluhluhluhuhluhluh
Bababababababababababababababababa
Jajajajajajajajajajajajajaja
...
It's in the hole.

-Jelicious

What's the deal? - Eternal Sonata

Dreamsower TPT! I think I saw this game in your collection way back when. It's coming for the ps3 now, so, how is it?

I use the force like a motherfucker-Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I do. Or I would. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had a cool plot that's also in the graphic novel. I think there's talks about a movie too. So I wouldn't even rent it. Maybe that was the problem. The story is one of the game's strongest points (not the voice-acting though), and I knew it already. I had that problem with Dead Space for a while. The first act (like 5 or so chapters) of Dead Space has a lot to do with people turning into necromorphs or being attacked by necromorphs and the animated comic had all that. I wasn't as interested in that part.
I kind of forced my way through 20 or so hours of gameplay.
The controls were frustrating. The level-up system was boring. I don't know. I just didn't really like it that much. I liked KOTOR and Jedi Knight Outcast a lot better. They were a lot tighter.
This game was definitely pretty. You do cool things. I wouldn't recommend it. It's a frustrating experience. I think it's the controls or just me beating myself up for not being very good at a clumsy game. I think I remember other people saying similar things.

w/e

I beat this game.

LBJelicious

Well, We most all got it (PS3) - Dead Space

Update: 10/28/08

From the previews of Dead Space, I got the impression that the necromorphs weren't going to die, I mean why should they? They're already dead. I thought that's what the selective dismemberment system was about: cut that fucker's leg off so he can't hurt you, just gurgle at you menacingly. My way is scarier.

Update: 10/20/08
I have beaten Dead Space. I thought the middle was slow but the end was really really good. Me and my neighbor should have seen it coming but we didn't. The game tricked us that well. To a certain extent, the Doom3, Bioshock, all that style thing helped along the twists at the end, but I really wanted the supporting crew to banter more and show concern more for Isaac.

I'm also really really scared still. Gameplay, interaction with the environment (the map! OHMYGOD! the Map is amazing!), the world of Dead Space, all these things were tight, but some of the scenarios were kind of lame. Do this shit. This shitty thing is broken so you can't do that shit. Go over there and fix that shit so you can do that shit. Now that you've done some shit, we're gonna attack with some enemies. Almost every single time too. Completing an objective almost assuredly means getting attacked.

The game was really really good. I don't really want to sleep. The writing for the animated comics was really really good too, and they tell a tighter story than the game itself. I really wanted to have the world go crazy while I was there, not go find the wreckage afterwards though. Are they gonna make a sequel? It'd be interesting.

The limb thing was cool. I thought the engineer weapons would make a little more sense. There's no real explanation why you can use these tools to dismember zombie-aliens, or why you can buy these tools ready-made from a conveniently-placed store. It's just there. It's like the designers saying to the player, "You've played video games before, right? This is our weapon-upgrade system. Use it or don't whatever. You'll die if you don't."

It was really good about keeping the survival part of the horror going. At first they give you plenty ammo but no space to keep it in, but then you have plenty of space and no ammo, or it just takes a while to conserve and I blew it all in a bad bad fight. Oh, God, and can I just mention that solving a puzzle while an unkillable monster chases you is fucking difficult in this game and harrowing and my neighbor and I kept screaming at each other about how to fucking solve the goddamn puzzle while tricking the monster into thinking we weren't there.

Oh, yeah. There's some nice tricks you can pick up with doors if you want to avoid being seen by monsters even though you're in plain sight. It makes sense in terms of programming because the doors are the loading screens (and that was pretty fucking cool too), but not if the dudes are actually trying to kill you.

I had a moment on top of an asteroid where I just stared off into the endless vacuum of space in wonder. It was powerful. I really like but am scared of space.

Dead Space. Did she really just pop out of nowhere or is he just crazy? Goddamn. Those moments always get stuck in my head. I'm scared again. Unitology is scary.

10/19/08: I think I've been marathoning Dead Space for over seven hours on a 1080i tv after having played pinball, Guitar Hero, and saw The King of Kong all day.

I'm on break! A dude loaned me his TV. I bought a copy. The King of Kong was really good.

Right, so...I didn't like Doom 3. Any part of Dead Space that reminds me of Doom 3, I don't like. For instance: audioblogs don't make sense. Who just records tapes and leaves it hanging around? Yeah, they're following that "masterful" type of story-telling that Half-Life 2 used, but I would much rather have some real character development like Isaac is going through some rough shit. How come he's so calm?

You know who had better story-telling than Half-Life 2? Shadow of the Colossus. Give me a silent character like that and I'll buy it, or better yet, give me a real person, give me any main character from Silent Hill instead. Then maybe I'll give a shit about the stupid flunkies Isaac's left behind with who just order you around...lame...gaaaaahhh...WHY DON'T THEY ACT LIKE PEOPLE? They don't joke, they don't tell asinine stories...Why don't they have arguments with Isaac about what they should be doing? Why don't they fuck up from the stress? Why do they only talk to Isaac about their objectives? You know, I only played System Shock 2's beginning, but it had some of really nice elements that really grabbed the player.

Gameplay has been tight. Zero-g sequences have been amazing. At one point, I thought I had the game by the balls, and it would only get boring from then on, but then a rough fucking chapter has left me bruised in ego and supply. I had so many fucking medkits and ammo! Now I'm stuck with only one gun with decent ammo, limping around with barely minimum health. Also, some of the biggest scares haven't come from the game itself but playing it with my neighbor. See, I've got the gun. I know where those bitches are coming from 'cause I can hear them. I know how to kill them because I've been doing it all night, but he's watching so he's just got his wits, and sometimes they get taken out from under him. So then he starts screaming and it unnerves me. I mean, it's easy enough to steel yourself against scary shit, but to also steel someone else or deal with another frightened human being is unnerving. See how character interaction can make a game scarier? I can aim for specific body parts all night, but make me concerned for the survivors around me, and I'll get fucked up.

Every once and a while I have to repeat out loud myself I have respect for human life.

Dead Space has fucked with me. It has told me I like ripping apart the limbs of other living things, or I had fucking better if I want to survive, and I think I do want to survive although I have no clue how this story will end. I'd like to think the odds are too stacked against Isaac for there to be a happy ending, but that it should be a good ending that doesn't feel forced or too open.

I'm tired. I haven't beat this game yet. There's a scene where you shoot a cannon at incoming debris. It is very lame. The developers said that you were an engineer, not a soldier, and yet you act just like one. Gordon Freeman disease or some shit.

So much work

Behold a gift given from a friend returning from studying in Japan for a year. This is one roll of toilet paper I hope I may never be forced to use. I have been so swamped with work lately, odd thing is they are mostly papers. This is odd due to the fact I'm in engineering but I guess I had to suffer at some point along the road, figures it'd be in the last year.

Anyways, in the large span of time since my last post I have taken a bite into a couple games but haven't been able to beat any of them due to lack of free time. I started Condemned 2 and was enjoying the tweaks and refining of the first entry mechanics. This past weekend I finally got Lost Planet after having pined for it since it was first released on the 360. I said screw you to the updated release and bought a nice used complete collector's edition from eStarland when I was home (if you live in the Northern Virginia this store is awesome and pure quality). I have actually played 5 or 6 chapters into that game already, which as I hear is about halfway through and been loving it (I also enjoyed epic fights with the optional giant worm and giant moth kills for those achievements). Lastly, as I said I have been writing non-stop papers lately (I need to actually write something for a group meeting by 3pm so ugh) but I picked up Dead Space yesterday and it has been gut-wrenchingly painful to not throw that sucker into the system and give it a whirl.

Funny thing I noticed that really irritated me, if a game is supposed to be released on a Tuesday why is it not in the stores on a Tuesday. That was bullshit, although honestly I don't know if I would be able to play it any sooner, but that is besides the point. Also I tend to not follow games months before they come out beyond being aware that it is on it's way. If I did I feel like I would experience more anxiety than I really need to. The last week though leading up to the release of Dead Space has had me unable to sit still in anticipation. It's not that I have super high expectations for the game, it's more that I am pumped to play an awesomely atmospheric sci-fi horror game. I noticed it was getting fairly good reviews from some websites etc. etc. but honestly I just want to start spelunking around in some derelict ship. I mean, who didn't have this overwhelming feeling of "I WANT TO DO THAT" whenever they watch the Aliens series or other similar movie. The fact that the screens from Dead Space seem to capture the right essence of science fiction that I grew up with has me anticipating a delightfully nostalgic atmosphere.

So yeah, just wanted to say that hopefully I'll be posting some thorough thoughts on some games in the coming days as well as some issues I was thinking about. I read some article someone had written about before regarding overworld maps, and you see it often when reading reviews for more recent RPGs primarily about the lack of one. I for one really miss this feature, I mean come on. You're playing some epic game like FF7, Xenogears, Star Ocean 2nd Story, Legend of Legaia, etc. and you either load up some long lost save file of yours or just emerge from some dungeon and BAM! You're hit with some sweeping emotional score that makes you just swoon and wax nostalgic about all the great adventures you've had trouncing about on these vast open planes with your not-to-scale party indicator. So writing an entry about that would be cool, I mean I know they go for this whole "overworld that is seamless with the cities" shown in FF12, Star Ocean: TtEoT, insert other newer RPG but there's something cool about the overworld map.

Also as a random note I started watching/listening to Jaffe's video blogs on youtube and I am absolutely loving them. I have yet to play through any of the God of War games, and the only Twisted Metal I played was Black when the PS2 first came out (that game rocked) so I don't know him too well as a game developer. What I do know is that sure I agree with most of the things he says, but honestly he's just entertaining and interesting to listen to. I should start reading his blog, I know they've had it linked here since before I joined but I never went exploring those much O_O. Now to go write some more....

ughhh I wanna play Dead Space!

Name Change

Or well...not so dramatic. We do this shit all the time.

From now on, call me LB Jelicious.

Sound Good? Good? Good. OK. So no key? Okay okay no key okay no key okayy okayyy you got not no key? okay?/ OKAY FUCKYOU NO KEY OKAY FUCK YOU!

Why I game

word.