I stole my friend's Playstation 2, and got a chance to replay Onimusha 3, and it was fun for a while, but it had that Haze phenomenom. Something about the game just started to make it less and less interesting. Max Payne 2 was really fun to play again, but I stopped that after a bit too. So, I gave my friend his PS2 back, and picked up a copy of Bard's Tale, which was also fun until I got tired of hitting spacebar, waiting for The Bard to draw his bow back and charge up Arrow Storm (fires three arrows), and over and over again. I got tired of walking into non-descript dungeons facing vague clones of previous enemies. I got tired of summoning the same creatures over and over to fight. I replayed FF8 until my mistreated PSP wiped my data, and I cringed at the thought of doing it all over again.
I thought I was done with videogames. I started reading books. I liked Malus Darkblade a lot, but found it hard to find something that grabbed me as wholly. Mervus Peake's Gormenghast trilogy has amazing imagery, but also has a tendency to spend a whole page describing menial social interactions. I got into Stephen King's Dark Tower. The Gunslinger was incredible in its minimalism. A simple story, not too complicated descriptions but detailed, a unique world, and a unique voice for its main character. Intermittent pitfalls into cliches of Christ imagery and a boyish take on sexuality (a lonely barmaid with a scar throws herself at him, a gun in a vagina "purifies" a woman's womb), but an engaging story. But the next book was written years later and doesn't have the same voice. Written in 1987, it reads like an episode of "Tales from the Crypt." It's funny how people's speech has changed in twenty years or so.
So, I thought I was done with video games, but it's been difficult to find something that eats free time and engages thought as well as a video game.
Found a copy of Condemned: Criminal Origins. Fucking satisfying, creepy thriller game. I really like that studio. FEAR was fun too. Melee combat that was difficult, asked the player to learn patterns and rhythmn to survive. Favorite weapon was the blade from a paper cutter. Nasty. Also nasty to hit big pig fuckers with shovels, but fuck you shitbags, I'm gonna survive.
Then after long fights with a non-genuine copy of Windows 7, torrented games, and shite pirated games (forgive me, children of game developers), I got Mass Effect working.
So, let's talk about it.
Mass Effect gives you experience by talking to folk, but sometimes the dialogue is fucking weak. Characters are rarely very deep and often talk very plainly about themselves, their race, or things you're interested in rather than things they would be interested in. Most times, you interrogate NPCs with questions rather than engaging them in what would be considered a normal conversation. Sure, you're in the military and when most civilians meet you, they're put off like if a cop randomly stopped you and asked you to chat. However, it would be much more engaging, challenging, and realistic if the charm and intimidate skills affected a NPC's first impression of you, and that, in turn, determined what information you were given. Like if conversation were more like Yakuza's bargirl mini-game.
Mass Effect also has a good/evil system where you can be a Galactic Vigilante (or M16, KGB, Gestapo, choose your favorite analogy for a council government's police force with little to no accountability to any civilian organization) that always upholds the law but gives people leeway to follow it (one time I got renegade points for insisting that a criminal go to prison instead of continuing to run a petty crimes ring) or an asshole more interested in achieving greater good objectives than saving lives. Sometimes you could have a strong argument against the game's definitions of good and evil.
Mass Effect also allows you to travel the galaxy, and, at first, I was excited and intimidated by the scope of the galaxies, but you slowly realize a sickening pattern. Go to a galaxy, run your mouse over each planet, survey planets for materials or land on the planets and...goddamnit.
Mass Effect is a shooting RPG with a vehicle. A Mako. An all-terrain buggy. A fucking...
There are cool segments where you race through huge facilities or fight your way into heavily-fortified forts, but you never get a chance to improve your vehicle. From the start of the game until the end, it has a machine gun and a cannon. You fire the cannon and wait for it to reload. You fire your machine gun until it overheats. You have jets that allow the mako to jump ten feet or so in the air that you are never able to improve, but...
Dear, God, but, most of your time in the Mako exploring exciting new frontiers is spent trying to drive over hills and mountains. Your Mako is dropped on to a planet (Read: a square map). There are two or three scattered objectives in your operational square. In between these two or three scattered objectives are mountains and hills and valleys and dear God, all you can really do to navigate over all of these mountains, valleys, hills, and blah blah blah is press forward and hope for the best. The jump jets often just throw you off the hill.
The planets all start to look the same after a while. This planet is red. This planet is green. They're all just sparsely-populated, rocky plains. You drive halfway across each map (an hour or more added to the journey because of the fucking hills and shit) to find probes filled with items, or artifacts that give little experience and money, or facilities, and after a while, you start to notice that the facilities are all the same too. They have the same twists and turns and the boxes used for cover are all in the same places. Half-Life 2 and Portal were awesome because each segment was noticeably different and interesting. The story segments (the maps and such) are noticeably different and interesting, but a lot of the game is this planet exploring thingy. I keep thinking, "Hey, what did you do when you played this game...?" and I usually think, "I drove the damn Mako up hills on different planets. All of which had Earth's gravity." Ooh, wouldn't it be cool if the gravity was different? At one point, in Mass Effect you go to Earth's moon, and gravity is still a bitch there as you try to drive up and down its beautiful craters.
But, all of this sidequesting gets you money and experience, which aint worth shit after a while. First of all, the game overloads you with items. Boxes and crates are everywhere and they give you enough items so that you could equip every single character you have with the best of each weapon, each upgrade, armor, and biotic or electrical amplifier, but why would you bother when you only use three of them at a time? At the beginning of the game, I drooled at the equipment in shops. Then I explored a shitload of planets, and half the items I got were twice as good as the ones in the shop, so I didn't buy anything or I didn't travel back to the shops to check out new supplies because of the load times required to travel back to the main shopping hub, which is an incidental realistic touch. If you were halfway across the galaxy, you probably wouldn't travel back to the main shopping hub every time you wanted to improve your equipment. Then there was an item cap. At 150 items, you either have to sell your inventory or turn it into gel that will decrpyt locks to get more items or repair your stupid fucking mako. Lame.
Sell or buy enough, and you unlock the Spectre gear, the best weapons in the game, and at that point, only armor, upgrades, and amps become worth your time to find.
And then experience starts to become more moot. Experience gets you talent points. Talent points go to improving your weapon skills or your powers. When you have the best weapons in the game, you don't really need to improve your weapons skills. The best weapons are accurate and have high damage which is what spending talent points improves. Then powers become less important because you don't really need to use them. Your weapons are killing folk fast and effectively. You have badass armor and good upgrades for it too. You rarely get hit because you kill most of what you come across quickly. When you do get hit, it barely hurts.
Some of the upgrades are interesting. Towards the end, you get high-explosive rounds that do more damage but increase weapon overheat and other rounds that decrease accuracy, but it's always easier to get a quicker kill than to disable then kill. If you were playing Baldur's Gate, where enemies are very evenly matched with you, then it becomes really important to disable and keep enemies from disabling you. Mass Effect only has about 10 or so powers, so the strategies for using powers are limited. Run into a room, use overload to disable shields, shoot to kill. Run into a room, lift an enemy, shoot the poor bastard as he falls down, move on to the next one. Run into a room with Asari commandos, damper them so they can't turn you into a crumpled mess on the floor, sabotage their weapons if you feel like it or just shoot them down.
At the beginning of the game, combat is super difficult, but it gets easier and easier. Your buddies are really good at taking enemies down, and enemies aren't quite matched to your abilities, but it isn't clear why. Either that or I played too many sidequests and now all the story missions are too easy.
Well, I've said what I wanted to say about this game, so I'll go beat it then add some comments.
It's ok. Planescape: Torment had a tighter story and dialogue. If every game had a good story like Planescape, I would still find something to complain about, or I would be too absorbed in games to socialize.
Maybe Some (g)ood shit will Be around soon
-Lucky Lindy
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Final Fantasy XII
I spent most of last night talking about how great this game is.
It really sucks if you play it like an old-school RPG, but if you tune the fuck out of the gambits, it becomes this really cool challenge to balance attack and defense to pound monsters as fast and as hard as you can.
I hardly pay attention to the story though. It is kinda interesting, but The battle system took over that game. I'm hoping Final 13 will be a good mix of story and badass battle system.
I've been playing it with another teacher and we akined it to teaching English. You plan for a battle, give instructions, but then you have to keep careful watch to make sure those instructions are followed. Or you could say it was the same as a turn-based system, you just automatically program each turn like in American RPGs, the A lot of people talk about action games with RPG elements, and here we have an RPG that looks like an action game. It's like God of War with more commands.
I made a mistake in playing this game for the story. The characters are dead shallow. Two of the characters are just little kids and have little to do with the main story. One of them is Vaan.
I replayed (FF)7 and rocked it. I'm working on 8 now. 8 is super cool, but it's really easy to get super good magic at the beginning of the game. I think it gets harder, but right now it's fun 'cause I can test different battle styles out.
Disagea got super boring after a while, man. Mind-numbing dungeon crawlers are not for me. I can't defend FFXII as different, but with Disagea, doing really well seems more like a matter of patience not skill. Beating an RPG in less time is way more impressive than putting ridiculous amounts of hours in.
And that's this asshole's opinion.
-Lyndon's BigBig Porking Johnson
It really sucks if you play it like an old-school RPG, but if you tune the fuck out of the gambits, it becomes this really cool challenge to balance attack and defense to pound monsters as fast and as hard as you can.
I hardly pay attention to the story though. It is kinda interesting, but The battle system took over that game. I'm hoping Final 13 will be a good mix of story and badass battle system.
I've been playing it with another teacher and we akined it to teaching English. You plan for a battle, give instructions, but then you have to keep careful watch to make sure those instructions are followed. Or you could say it was the same as a turn-based system, you just automatically program each turn like in American RPGs, the A lot of people talk about action games with RPG elements, and here we have an RPG that looks like an action game. It's like God of War with more commands.
I made a mistake in playing this game for the story. The characters are dead shallow. Two of the characters are just little kids and have little to do with the main story. One of them is Vaan.
I replayed (FF)7 and rocked it. I'm working on 8 now. 8 is super cool, but it's really easy to get super good magic at the beginning of the game. I think it gets harder, but right now it's fun 'cause I can test different battle styles out.
Disagea got super boring after a while, man. Mind-numbing dungeon crawlers are not for me. I can't defend FFXII as different, but with Disagea, doing really well seems more like a matter of patience not skill. Beating an RPG in less time is way more impressive than putting ridiculous amounts of hours in.
And that's this asshole's opinion.
-Lyndon's BigBig Porking Johnson
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Manhunt
Been playing Manhunt and Manhunt 2 lately. They're actually pretty sweet. Was turned off by the gore for a bit, but I think the other parts of the game make it worth it. The enemies are hillarious and the stories are pretty interesting.
Check this out from Manhunt 2 (skip to the 7 minute count):
Check this out from Manhunt 2 (skip to the 7 minute count):
Monday, September 7, 2009
MS(g)B is your link for KittyWheelbarrowing
MS(g)B Productions has recently created two works for your entertainment pleasure.
The first is entitled Mr. 5-in-1.
The second is entitled FUK LBJ - Kitty Wheelbarrow
The second.5 is a behind the scenes look at Kitty Wheelbarrow
Don't know what FUK LBJ is? Check out this trailer for the upcoming movie!
Be the first to tell your friends about MS(g)B Productions!
Subscribe to our Youtube channel!
got ideas or need some actors? MS(g)B would love to help you film things!
e-mail us at lyndonbigjohnson@googlemail.com
Lil Big J will be in Thailand for the next year, but he'll pass the e-mail on to the JoFu
The first is entitled Mr. 5-in-1.
The second is entitled FUK LBJ - Kitty Wheelbarrow
The second.5 is a behind the scenes look at Kitty Wheelbarrow
Don't know what FUK LBJ is? Check out this trailer for the upcoming movie!
Be the first to tell your friends about MS(g)B Productions!
Subscribe to our Youtube channel!
got ideas or need some actors? MS(g)B would love to help you film things!
e-mail us at lyndonbigjohnson@googlemail.com
Lil Big J will be in Thailand for the next year, but he'll pass the e-mail on to the JoFu
Thursday, August 20, 2009
That ugly, dirty feeling in your chest- Prototype
Ugh...I just beat Prototype. Ugh..I will like this game the more I think about it, but as it stands the controls were really really frustrating. I spent an hour in a boss fight. It's cool that you get mauled by forces actually trying to kill you rather than pretending to try to kill you for your sport, but then you need the powers to actually fucking kill a thing. The powers you get sound really cool, but then you have to use them. I spent most of the game looking for a tank to steal or a missile launcher to use because I really couldn't go toe-to-toe with...anything. Ok, I could take out zombies and civies just fine.
The game's concepts are really cool. The web of intrigue is neat as shit. The NPC voice acting is sweet. They cracked me up all the time. The military uses all these cool code phrases like calling an airstrike a rain-dance and telling RC (Red Crown) to make it wet. Burrrrrrrrrrahh!
A lot of this game is really good, but it's also a "sandbox" game. That part sucks. Besides story missions, there are a bunch of side missions like racing or killing or warring or consuming folk. This is basically what you do in the story missions. It also has little to nothing to do with the story itself. You just do 'em to get exp, and after a while exp is really useless. It unlocks cool gimmicky attacks, but it's a bunch of shit you don't need. Stats bonuses are the most useful.
The story itself is also really weak. It's like playing GTA3. There's little character-to-character interaction or character development. Most video sequences are just mission briefings with one little bit of interaction.
The buildings are also fucking ugly.
This game looks like it's development was pushed, like they had so much content already that they just shirked here and there. Otherwise...I wouldn't rent this game. I bought this game. I'm gonna go sell it to buy a soccer game. Gamestop is going to rip me off. This game frustrated me. I loved parts of it. I don't know. Don't play this game. Watch it on youtube. It'll be better than playing it. Or wait for the movie to come out and hope it's good. It'll probably be weird.
I was soooooo damn excited about this game...I hope the sequel's better.
The game's concepts are really cool. The web of intrigue is neat as shit. The NPC voice acting is sweet. They cracked me up all the time. The military uses all these cool code phrases like calling an airstrike a rain-dance and telling RC (Red Crown) to make it wet. Burrrrrrrrrrahh!
A lot of this game is really good, but it's also a "sandbox" game. That part sucks. Besides story missions, there are a bunch of side missions like racing or killing or warring or consuming folk. This is basically what you do in the story missions. It also has little to nothing to do with the story itself. You just do 'em to get exp, and after a while exp is really useless. It unlocks cool gimmicky attacks, but it's a bunch of shit you don't need. Stats bonuses are the most useful.
The story itself is also really weak. It's like playing GTA3. There's little character-to-character interaction or character development. Most video sequences are just mission briefings with one little bit of interaction.
The buildings are also fucking ugly.
This game looks like it's development was pushed, like they had so much content already that they just shirked here and there. Otherwise...I wouldn't rent this game. I bought this game. I'm gonna go sell it to buy a soccer game. Gamestop is going to rip me off. This game frustrated me. I loved parts of it. I don't know. Don't play this game. Watch it on youtube. It'll be better than playing it. Or wait for the movie to come out and hope it's good. It'll probably be weird.
I was soooooo damn excited about this game...I hope the sequel's better.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Nostalgia you sonuvhabeech
Jean-Claude Van Damme is awesome, particularly in Street Fighter: The Movie. Speaking of movies a week ago or so I went to see Moon. Now, the thing is I love a good old fashioned Sci-Fi movie. 2001, 2010, The Abyss, The Fountain, & Solaris among other films are movies where some really cool idea/story is being told where it doesn't use action as an excuse to submerge you in geeky stuff. That isn't to say I love my Aliens & Matrix and other action heavy sci-fi flicks, it is just nice to see something that doesn't shoehorn in action for the sake of entertaining those who need it. So I was pretty pumped to see Moon cause it had plenty of 2001/Solaris vibes in terms of atmosphere and feel, the viewing was disappointing to say the least. This is one of those situations where the trailers make it seem a lot more interesting and cooler than what it was. I almost feel bad that for once I had expectations for a movie because I've grown up on sci-fi flicks. To summarize it in not as many words, it is an above average movie that I felt really let me down in the direction it goes. This is primarily because I didn't think it really did anything with what it had.
So yeah movies are good times. The nostalgia I am referring to is FF7. Last week my former roommate from VT came up to visit. Since he hadn't been in the D.C. area in quite some time we went to some of the museums during the day. After the long day out when we got back we plopped down to relax and he bust out his laptop and started some FF7. My memories of the game immediately hit me like a freight train and I had a huge urge to play the game. The immediate problem stopping me was that I wished I could just continue playing it on my PS3 instead of using my PS or PS2, the lack of memory card ports on the PS3 made me sad. Nostalgia screamed "find a way" and I immediately ordered a memory card adapter as well as an 8GB memory stick duo. Why is it that I ordered a large memory stick duo? Why to purchase the game yet again off the PSN in order to play it on the go on my PSP and I only had a 1GB duo stick currently (the game needing 1.4 GB or so). I had been told "but why not use the remote play feature of your PS3?" and while that is a great feature which I will use for other games, playing a multi-disc game that way would just not workout. Now I am about ready to get down with my blast from the past and finally beat Emerald and Ruby weapons (the last save I was working on had maxed the clock out at 99:59:59, I have 3 master magic materias from mastering them all 3 times around, and had all my summons maxed save for Knights of the Round which was level 4 aka too much time has been spent in that game).
Also due to the incredibly huge itch for FF7, despite the fact that I still maintain the plot is not that good, I picked up Crisis Core cause I wanna know more of the back-story. My zeal has been slightly derailed since while waiting for my memory card adapter I had started playing FFTactics PSP again (1 class away for Ramza and a few more for my other chars for all mastered classes before I continue on to Riovanes Castle). Games from the 90s/early 2000s were so rad, gotta love the great feeling of playing games you've grown up with.
Despite all the delays for some titles what kinda games are you all looking forward to in this fall lineup? I am extremely pumped for Demon's Souls, Disgaea 2 PSP port, and the Persona remake on PSP for my RPG fix. I can't wait for Muramasa, Brutal Legend (Tim Schafer is wonderful), & bayonetta (I think this got pushed back) and I am curious about Wet and Shadow Complex. I can't think of any others since I can never keep tabs on all the stuff that is coming out.
So yeah movies are good times. The nostalgia I am referring to is FF7. Last week my former roommate from VT came up to visit. Since he hadn't been in the D.C. area in quite some time we went to some of the museums during the day. After the long day out when we got back we plopped down to relax and he bust out his laptop and started some FF7. My memories of the game immediately hit me like a freight train and I had a huge urge to play the game. The immediate problem stopping me was that I wished I could just continue playing it on my PS3 instead of using my PS or PS2, the lack of memory card ports on the PS3 made me sad. Nostalgia screamed "find a way" and I immediately ordered a memory card adapter as well as an 8GB memory stick duo. Why is it that I ordered a large memory stick duo? Why to purchase the game yet again off the PSN in order to play it on the go on my PSP and I only had a 1GB duo stick currently (the game needing 1.4 GB or so). I had been told "but why not use the remote play feature of your PS3?" and while that is a great feature which I will use for other games, playing a multi-disc game that way would just not workout. Now I am about ready to get down with my blast from the past and finally beat Emerald and Ruby weapons (the last save I was working on had maxed the clock out at 99:59:59, I have 3 master magic materias from mastering them all 3 times around, and had all my summons maxed save for Knights of the Round which was level 4 aka too much time has been spent in that game).
Also due to the incredibly huge itch for FF7, despite the fact that I still maintain the plot is not that good, I picked up Crisis Core cause I wanna know more of the back-story. My zeal has been slightly derailed since while waiting for my memory card adapter I had started playing FFTactics PSP again (1 class away for Ramza and a few more for my other chars for all mastered classes before I continue on to Riovanes Castle). Games from the 90s/early 2000s were so rad, gotta love the great feeling of playing games you've grown up with.
Despite all the delays for some titles what kinda games are you all looking forward to in this fall lineup? I am extremely pumped for Demon's Souls, Disgaea 2 PSP port, and the Persona remake on PSP for my RPG fix. I can't wait for Muramasa, Brutal Legend (Tim Schafer is wonderful), & bayonetta (I think this got pushed back) and I am curious about Wet and Shadow Complex. I can't think of any others since I can never keep tabs on all the stuff that is coming out.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Remembering that dumb feeling - Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit the Road, grim Fandango, etc. etc.
Remember when you were a kid and played video games? Remember how you could get to one part of a game and then you got stuck, had to start the whole game over to actually play because you hit some speedbump that was impassible without your big brother's help.
One year, my neighbor got me a game genie for my birthday. Nice fucking kid! So much easier to beat games then.
So, you get what I'm talking about, right? Sometimes you just gotta reach for the goddamn strategy guide because whatever the game's trying to make you do 't aint natural.
I'm not good at older games. I guess a lot of people aren't because they were more difficult. I blame a lot of my weakness on the fact that controls used to suck. Suck out the fucking ass suck.
Example of an older game's controls-
A- Shoot
B- Jump
D-pad is d-pad
You can jump. You can shoot. Forget dodging like a human might dream of. It's like comparing old Resident Evil with new Resident Evil. Some sort of fear is lost in the fact that the old controls were shit and hard to use and now shit's a lot easier to control.
However, that isn't my problem (damn, when am I ever going to get to the point?). My problem is that older games tend to make me feel just downright stupid. Like in Jak & Daxter where I just don't seem able to do certain things. I kind of remember why I hated these zeldaesque games. Because when presented with some challenge it's hard to know whether you're even capable yet of completing said challenge. Maybe you have to come back later with the Big, Black Dildo of Comeuppance to slap that bitch so she'll drop the Platinum Filling of Herpes out of her mouth. Fuck if I know.
I play this game and I die so often I've started to expect to do it when I enter any room in the game. Every step is a recon mission for my next turn at life.
So, I feel dumb.
Ratchet & Clank's shoot-em-up and jump style was more to my liking. I'm proud to say that I beat three of those games in the course of a week, and I only stopped beating 'em because the other ones cost money. Three more plus some PSP titles and I'll have played them all. Ratchet & Clanks are best at humor and weapons and leveling up said weapons.
Jak & Daxter is best at making me feel dumb and telling myself, "This happens to a lot of gamers."
I felt the same kinda way about Monkey Island and a lot of the other old adventure games. I hit speed bumps and then I got out a strategy guide because I knew I wasn't smart enough. Or maybe I'm just holding myself back. Maybe I am smart enough, I just don't want to admit it or spend the time to find out.
Jak & Daxter frustrates me with its difficulty. I'm serious. I find it harder than Ninja gaiden! If you've beaten these games, laugh at me. Some 8-year-old could tell me off and all I could say in return is "I have sex with women."
LyBel Johnson
p.s.(My brother's band's name is Libel. He's on myspace!)
p.s.s. I still remember some HTML!
One year, my neighbor got me a game genie for my birthday. Nice fucking kid! So much easier to beat games then.
So, you get what I'm talking about, right? Sometimes you just gotta reach for the goddamn strategy guide because whatever the game's trying to make you do 't aint natural.
I'm not good at older games. I guess a lot of people aren't because they were more difficult. I blame a lot of my weakness on the fact that controls used to suck. Suck out the fucking ass suck.
Example of an older game's controls-
A- Shoot
B- Jump
D-pad is d-pad
You can jump. You can shoot. Forget dodging like a human might dream of. It's like comparing old Resident Evil with new Resident Evil. Some sort of fear is lost in the fact that the old controls were shit and hard to use and now shit's a lot easier to control.
However, that isn't my problem (damn, when am I ever going to get to the point?). My problem is that older games tend to make me feel just downright stupid. Like in Jak & Daxter where I just don't seem able to do certain things. I kind of remember why I hated these zeldaesque games. Because when presented with some challenge it's hard to know whether you're even capable yet of completing said challenge. Maybe you have to come back later with the Big, Black Dildo of Comeuppance to slap that bitch so she'll drop the Platinum Filling of Herpes out of her mouth. Fuck if I know.
I play this game and I die so often I've started to expect to do it when I enter any room in the game. Every step is a recon mission for my next turn at life.
So, I feel dumb.
Ratchet & Clank's shoot-em-up and jump style was more to my liking. I'm proud to say that I beat three of those games in the course of a week, and I only stopped beating 'em because the other ones cost money. Three more plus some PSP titles and I'll have played them all. Ratchet & Clanks are best at humor and weapons and leveling up said weapons.
Jak & Daxter is best at making me feel dumb and telling myself, "This happens to a lot of gamers."
I felt the same kinda way about Monkey Island and a lot of the other old adventure games. I hit speed bumps and then I got out a strategy guide because I knew I wasn't smart enough. Or maybe I'm just holding myself back. Maybe I am smart enough, I just don't want to admit it or spend the time to find out.
Jak & Daxter frustrates me with its difficulty. I'm serious. I find it harder than Ninja gaiden! If you've beaten these games, laugh at me. Some 8-year-old could tell me off and all I could say in return is "I have sex with women."
LyBel Johnson
p.s.(My brother's band's name is Libel. He's on myspace!)
p.s.s. I still remember some HTML!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
My appreciation of the PS3 continues
Lately I have been addicted, yet again, to some good old Diablo 2. Even though I am weaning myself off of the blast-from-the-past I still do my fair share of random countess/chaos/baal/andy/pit runs. I have been trading off attention to my handhelds, I imagine it would be similar to entertaining two children with equal attention (heh I wouldn't know). On the PSP has been a lovely classic JRPG experience with Crimson Gem Saga, lots of fun with this one so far. On the DS I have had a great time with SMT: Devil Survivor which is enjoyable but some magic from the console SMT titles is missing I feel. That shouldn't be a mark against SMT: Devil Survivor though since it is still a great game that has a complex and gratifying combat system (strat rpg/standard turn based rpg hybrid). That being said I have been giving my consoles a bit of the cold shoulder. Getting back into the groove this past weekend I started the PS3 up.
Yesterday I picked up Fat Princess which is loaded with fun. I felt a bit detached from the gameplay since I am lacking a headset to coordinate but that was minor. I enjoyed most of my time playing the game as a worker or archer class. Charging up arrows and letting loose was great while dancing about avoiding getting hit. Gathering resources and reinforcing the defenses was also rather entertaining. One problem I noticed was the great amount of time spent on trying to find/connect to games. At first I was curious if it was my problem but I have just recently been upgraded to a FiOS connection so that was unlikely. Destructoid says that Sony will be working on it. I look forward to that being a little more smooth.
I have also played a good amount of Savage Moon which is a terrific TD game that I got while it was on sale for $5 on PSN. It is very challenging, I am not used to my cattle fighting back while herding them in a TD.
Finally I have played a large amount of Wipeout HD this weekend. I grabbed the new Fury DLC which practically doubled the amount of content in the game. While I had dabbled in the title a little when I had gotten it during the previously mentioned PSN sale for a great price of $14.99 (the DLC was $9.99 which is great considering what you get) I finally sunk my teeth into it this weekend. All I can say is WOW, this is one of the best downloadable titles I have played on a console yet. That statement is taking into consideration Castle Crashers, Braid, Ikaruga port, Rez HD, Geometry Wars 2, Pixel Junk Eden, and what have you. I think it's the fact that I already enjoyed Wipeout Pulse as my entertainment for most of the flight to and from Japan, now that I can have the same experience at 1080p with 60fps and blasting music/sfx it floors me. As an additional icing on the cake they have a photo mode. I never figured I would enjoy this since it didn't seem like much on the PSP iteration, my god it is different on the PS3. The options you have and the kinds of pictures you can get out of the game just leave my jaw on the floor. I'll just let the pictures do the talking. Lighting... textures... I am just amazed.
Yesterday I picked up Fat Princess which is loaded with fun. I felt a bit detached from the gameplay since I am lacking a headset to coordinate but that was minor. I enjoyed most of my time playing the game as a worker or archer class. Charging up arrows and letting loose was great while dancing about avoiding getting hit. Gathering resources and reinforcing the defenses was also rather entertaining. One problem I noticed was the great amount of time spent on trying to find/connect to games. At first I was curious if it was my problem but I have just recently been upgraded to a FiOS connection so that was unlikely. Destructoid says that Sony will be working on it. I look forward to that being a little more smooth.
I have also played a good amount of Savage Moon which is a terrific TD game that I got while it was on sale for $5 on PSN. It is very challenging, I am not used to my cattle fighting back while herding them in a TD.
Finally I have played a large amount of Wipeout HD this weekend. I grabbed the new Fury DLC which practically doubled the amount of content in the game. While I had dabbled in the title a little when I had gotten it during the previously mentioned PSN sale for a great price of $14.99 (the DLC was $9.99 which is great considering what you get) I finally sunk my teeth into it this weekend. All I can say is WOW, this is one of the best downloadable titles I have played on a console yet. That statement is taking into consideration Castle Crashers, Braid, Ikaruga port, Rez HD, Geometry Wars 2, Pixel Junk Eden, and what have you. I think it's the fact that I already enjoyed Wipeout Pulse as my entertainment for most of the flight to and from Japan, now that I can have the same experience at 1080p with 60fps and blasting music/sfx it floors me. As an additional icing on the cake they have a photo mode. I never figured I would enjoy this since it didn't seem like much on the PSP iteration, my god it is different on the PS3. The options you have and the kinds of pictures you can get out of the game just leave my jaw on the floor. I'll just let the pictures do the talking. Lighting... textures... I am just amazed.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
There's no crying in guerilla warfare- Red Faction Guerilla
Man, oh, man! I just spent the last two and a half days in a dreamworld playing this game practically non-stop. I could have spent more, but I'm trying to get a job.
So, anyway! Let's talk about it.
The new Red Faction game is fun as hell. Why? Well, it's not horribly original. There are story missions and then side missions. Completing the side missions helps you complete the main missions, so there is some incentive. It also takes place on a massive map that you drive around to complete objectives. Sound familiar? Saint's Row, Just Cause, gta, Bad Company, etc, etc. What's original? Being able to blow up just about anything. In fact it's a main gameplay aspect. I love you, geomod!
What else? Chaos. You enter an enemy compound (probably alone, there's few options for teamwork with NPCs) and you get swarmed, so you gotta run around with your four weapons (others are available by collecting salvage or by stealing off dead enemies) and blow up every building before MORE enemies come and start fucking your shit up and causing more problems. Also, destroying buildings takes a lot of thought as to where the weak points and best ways to take it down are, and since enemies are usually swarming you, you gotta do it fast and faster than fast. It's really really challenging in an interesting way.
I've played this same game several times in different forms, but it doesn't really matter because it's fun. The story is kinda so-so, but they do take settling on Mars in an interesting direction. The environments are beautiful. The cars are really cool and so are the buildings. It's a very pretty game. The AI will kill you easily, and they have no regard for their own personal safety.
What else can I say?
I still wanna play this game even though I gave it back to Blockbuster and I got shit to do. I would ignore my children (if I had any) to play this game.
yea
-Lyndon Big Johnson
So, anyway! Let's talk about it.
The new Red Faction game is fun as hell. Why? Well, it's not horribly original. There are story missions and then side missions. Completing the side missions helps you complete the main missions, so there is some incentive. It also takes place on a massive map that you drive around to complete objectives. Sound familiar? Saint's Row, Just Cause, gta, Bad Company, etc, etc. What's original? Being able to blow up just about anything. In fact it's a main gameplay aspect. I love you, geomod!
What else? Chaos. You enter an enemy compound (probably alone, there's few options for teamwork with NPCs) and you get swarmed, so you gotta run around with your four weapons (others are available by collecting salvage or by stealing off dead enemies) and blow up every building before MORE enemies come and start fucking your shit up and causing more problems. Also, destroying buildings takes a lot of thought as to where the weak points and best ways to take it down are, and since enemies are usually swarming you, you gotta do it fast and faster than fast. It's really really challenging in an interesting way.
I've played this same game several times in different forms, but it doesn't really matter because it's fun. The story is kinda so-so, but they do take settling on Mars in an interesting direction. The environments are beautiful. The cars are really cool and so are the buildings. It's a very pretty game. The AI will kill you easily, and they have no regard for their own personal safety.
What else can I say?
I still wanna play this game even though I gave it back to Blockbuster and I got shit to do. I would ignore my children (if I had any) to play this game.
yea
-Lyndon Big Johnson
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Enjoy the Silence
Many moons have passed since last I posted, and lots of stuff happened. Some of that time was spent wrapping up school and graduation, I visited Japan during this time as well and had some good times there. Also in this time I was fortunate enough to receive a fair share of gifts from my graduation. Using some of this I recently procured a Playstation 3, I am now fortunate enough to have all three of the current consoles. Yeah, basically it is pretty sweet.
While visiting Japan I picked up some rather cool tidbits that were game related. I was tempted to pick up a game for my PSP or DS while there but figured the difficulty I would have for translating it outweighed my desire for any of the titles I saw. I picked up a full set plus extras of some SMT One Coin figures (a picture, the seventh character being a wolf) as well as a lovely Gwendolyn figure from Odin Sphere. I missed out on a gorgeous Valkyria Chronicles figure due to limited luggage space, I also just missed the last Etrian Odyssey gunner figure that was in a store. Finding well done figures from games that I've played is rather exciting...
Ok that's enough random talk about figures, now about games. Having gone on a long trip with plenty of time on an airplane as well as a new console to boot I dug into plenty of games since the last time I posted. The end of my semester was spent playing metric ass-tons of Rock Band and Resident Evil 5. My roommate and I SS ranked all of the mercenary levels save for maybe one? It's been a while but damn co-op mercenaries is hella fun. On my trip to Japan I played a huge amount of Wipeout Pulse for PSP as well as the Star Ocean Second Evolution port (stuck in the same part of the bonus dungeon as I was back in 2000/2001). I had gotten to the last disc of Lost Odyssey while at school, when I eventually get around to finishing it I need to do a summarizing post since the pacing really slowed and it has become slightly tedious to play. Finally, in my time since getting back from Japan I have been putting my PS3 to the test in terms of time in use. I started playing Folklore which I picked up from Bestbuy for $30 and LOVE the art direction/atmosphere but the actual gameplay is a little lacking. I have played some Little Big Planet, it is very unique but I am unsure if I will be able to personally use the customization elements to its full effect. Noby Noby Boy is something that, well it just needs to be experienced because you can't really describe it. I played lots of PS3 demos, in particular the demo for R&C: Tools of Destruction and it reminded me of all the reasons why I loved the first 3 Spyro games on Playstation (yay Insomniac) so lotsa fun there. To end it all before I ramble too much longer I played and beat MGS4 (stayed up this past night cause I couldn't put it down once I had gotten back to Shadow Moses MMMMM so good). That was a very satisfying and great first experience with the PS3 and I hope to make a more detailed post of my very late impressions of the PS3, particularly in comparison now with my other current consoles.
While visiting Japan I picked up some rather cool tidbits that were game related. I was tempted to pick up a game for my PSP or DS while there but figured the difficulty I would have for translating it outweighed my desire for any of the titles I saw. I picked up a full set plus extras of some SMT One Coin figures (a picture, the seventh character being a wolf) as well as a lovely Gwendolyn figure from Odin Sphere. I missed out on a gorgeous Valkyria Chronicles figure due to limited luggage space, I also just missed the last Etrian Odyssey gunner figure that was in a store. Finding well done figures from games that I've played is rather exciting...
Ok that's enough random talk about figures, now about games. Having gone on a long trip with plenty of time on an airplane as well as a new console to boot I dug into plenty of games since the last time I posted. The end of my semester was spent playing metric ass-tons of Rock Band and Resident Evil 5. My roommate and I SS ranked all of the mercenary levels save for maybe one? It's been a while but damn co-op mercenaries is hella fun. On my trip to Japan I played a huge amount of Wipeout Pulse for PSP as well as the Star Ocean Second Evolution port (stuck in the same part of the bonus dungeon as I was back in 2000/2001). I had gotten to the last disc of Lost Odyssey while at school, when I eventually get around to finishing it I need to do a summarizing post since the pacing really slowed and it has become slightly tedious to play. Finally, in my time since getting back from Japan I have been putting my PS3 to the test in terms of time in use. I started playing Folklore which I picked up from Bestbuy for $30 and LOVE the art direction/atmosphere but the actual gameplay is a little lacking. I have played some Little Big Planet, it is very unique but I am unsure if I will be able to personally use the customization elements to its full effect. Noby Noby Boy is something that, well it just needs to be experienced because you can't really describe it. I played lots of PS3 demos, in particular the demo for R&C: Tools of Destruction and it reminded me of all the reasons why I loved the first 3 Spyro games on Playstation (yay Insomniac) so lotsa fun there. To end it all before I ramble too much longer I played and beat MGS4 (stayed up this past night cause I couldn't put it down once I had gotten back to Shadow Moses MMMMM so good). That was a very satisfying and great first experience with the PS3 and I hope to make a more detailed post of my very late impressions of the PS3, particularly in comparison now with my other current consoles.
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