All Around Me Are Familiar Faces
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I’m going to warn you that this is hyper-violent. I also think it’s the most interesting visuals seen in a game since Okami. Oh…oh…OH! Guess what! It’s made by the same group of guys who made Okami. Welcome to Madworld.
Ebert, thoughts? Sigh.
Me, an Apple user?
I’m not quite sure when it happened, but after my Dell laptop died a few months ago, I secretly began lusting after an Apple computer. A MacBook, to be exact. It seemed unnatural, me being a PC guy since the days of my parents’ 286 (it had a Turbo button, people!) and 4-color monitor. For 18+ years, it was DOS and Windows. Sure, my uncle had a Macintosh, but that thing was weird. The screen was black and white! I couldn’t use one of those things. I had four colors, man. And so continued my blind devotion to the “PC” world unabated, even mostly unscathed by Windows ME. Nevertheless, gears were recently set in motion that I could not control.
Somehow, I ended up here, typing this post up on my brand new MacBook. Something happened. I’m pretty sure it’s not all that bad.
Where I’ve been
I have literally fallen off the grid the past couple of weeks, and the culprit is obvious: A little 360 game you might have heard of.
If you’ve been following my Twitter feed I’ve been playing a lot of it. I was also out of town this weekend and haven’t played for a few days, so now I’m jonesing again. As soon as the Cavs/Celtics game is over, I’ll be back in the comfortable confines of Liberty City.
I have a bunch to write up about the game, but I’d rather be playing it then blogging it. Sorry about that.
Monday Madness?
This is going to be a big madness. Due to recent excitement, we’ve got to catch up three weeks worth.
GAME: Gamers With Jobs featured a game a while back called Ether Cannon. It’s Asteroids with pretty visuals, concussion visuals.
PICS: Ever heard of the website PostSecret? Gamers With Jobs (again) started the same thing with games. The Teamfortress 2 pyro is my favorite. Post 1. Post 2.
GAME: Luminara, a much better take on Asteroids—much better. Now with trippy visuals, excellent controls, and a catchy soundtrack.
GAME: Do you like the Civilization games? Then you’ll love this FREE, dumbed-down, web-based version. Call it Ikariam. I’ll be sharing the server I’m on eventually.
PICS: Somebody took some screencaps of Metroid Prime 3 and made them 3D. I’ve got some glasses and I’ll admit: awesome. Thanks, Kotaku.
GAME: Audiosurf has recently added some new features. Why do I keep coming back to this game? Oh, yeah, because of allowing me to use my own songs. I don’t have to pay for each and every new song. Zing?
VIDEO: I usually cannot stand watching sportcasters, but somebody at TNT is teh phunny.
GAME: Zombies. That’s all I’m going to say. The Last Stand gets a sequel.
GAME: 1up has the first footage of Gears of War 2. Can you say $60 expansion pack? Sure you can.
GAME: Make your own Ouendan (Elite Beat Agents) clone for the PC. They’ve got video. N-E-A-T.
PICS: Warning! LEGO! I have two excellent posts. These guys have skills we should all have: the Germinated Ruby and the works of Izzo.
Well, the post was not as large as I thought after I weeded out some links I’d like to dedicate time for their own posts.
Apple copying Nintendo?
When the DS Lite and the Wii were unveiled, there was a lot of chatter of how Nintendo and Apple had a lot of similarities. There was even talk of how the two companies would benefit from working together. Now it looks like Apple could possibly be copying the Wii concept for Apple TV gaming.
It doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen any time soon.
GTA IV microblog
I just picked up my girlfriend for a date. In a city bus I hijacked on my way to her house. She did not seem bothered by this.
I believe she is what they call “a keeper.”
She was, however, bothered when my Uzi went off accidentally inside the Cluckin’ Bell during our previous date. I’m getting mixed signals.
Mario Kart Wii First Impressions
This picture says it all:
When a game can produce “the smile” (parents of young kids will know what I mean by “the smile”), it is okay in my book.
A lot of Mario Kart was played this weekend. It was played by kids 5 years old and 65 years old. Everyone had a great time. They say Nintendo has “dumbed down” Mario Kart for the Wii. They’re wrong. They didn’t dumb anything down. They distilled an already great game to its essence and made it accessible to the masses.
This is not a bad thing.
Nat and I will have more Mario Kart thoughts later.
(Look how much concentration this game takes!)
A Reason for All the Perfect Scores?
I’ve not had one viable reason to trust the reviews from the big boys when it comes to GTAIV. Recently, I came across this: something from somebody I trust—a person who actually used to be with the big boys.
The story is what I came to see. And I’m having trouble putting my feelings for this game’s story into words right now. I’ll spare you the fumbling and just say that it’s probably the greatest game story of all time, both in content and how it’s integrated into the rest of the game.
I’m curious as to what others (even here) may say about the storyline. This statement comes from a guy who plays games for a living—a lot of games. If it’s a tale of redemption, I will be greatly impressed. However, if the story is so brilliant, how come almost none of the reviews mention how excellent plot is?
Comic Watch - GU Comics
If the integrity of mainstream video game reviews was in a coffin and all but one nail had been driven home, the reviews for GTA IV was a big mash hammer that drove the last nail in, but bent it totally out of shape before smashing it home, making it all but impossible to pull it out.
Stick a fork in ‘em.
Why I Am Not Playing GTAIV
Gamespot: 10 out of 10. Game Informer: 10 out of 10. X-Play: 5 out of 5. IGN: 10 out of 10. 1UP: A+. Gamespy: 5 out of 5.
I would not be surprised if GTAIV is Game of the Year. I’m not playing it, and I probably never will.
Here are my reasons in no particular order:
There are just too many reasons not to.
I’ve changed. In the past, I would play any game that was popular or a triple-A title without any regard to content or subject matter. I just cannot play a game where it’s good to be bad. I pretty much avoid games where you are a serial killer, psycho, or just some crazy going postal. The GTA games let you do just that. You’re rewarded for being evil, and not just a satiric or comedic type of evil. Generally, the worse you are the better. I’m not against violence. I like playing Crackdown and Assassin’s Creed, but even then I don’t play them all that much anymore. Now, someone will argue that I really don’t know the game because I’ve never played it. However, there’s so much about GTA in popular culture and reviews that I’m pretty sure I’m not too far off the mark.
Violence and language affects you. Argue this as much as you want, but playing games influence you. Any game. There is no way around it. Another argument is that anything we watch, do, hear, and feel influences a person. Over the past year I’ve come to realize that when I surround myself with violence I tend to be more agitated and have a shorter fuse. I’m also tempted to use language I shouldn’t when I hear a lot of it. That’s not good. I generally avoid movies, comics, books, and games with over-the-top violence and language.
I have two kids under the age of five. Why even fall into the trap of exposing my boys to this? Will I be able to protect them from everything? No. This is me being a responsible parent. By the way, the adult games I do own and play are put up and out of sight from the kids. I don’t watch movies or play games until after they are in bed.
My job. In working with teenagers, I am appalled at how many of them know about games such as the GTA series or any other type of game that the ESRB says they shouldn’t play. It’s only too obvious: they’ve played them. Gamers, publishers, and designers can scream all they want, but these type of games are being played primarily by kids. Who’s to blame? Parents? Retailers? Gamers? Publisher? Designers? You? Me? No one really knows, and that debate will go on forever. I’m trying to influence kids to live good, clean lives and uphold at least a modicum of morality. It gets difficult when I’ve got to break up a group of kids sharing gaming tips when it’s time to teach them. Oh, and it’s not just games either. Movies like Superbad (Quality matches title? Brilliant) and their ilk are just as to blame.
I know some of these reasons are tied together. Do I think anything negative about people who play these type of games? Not at all. Each person is allowed to set their own standards. I just feel that if no one at least stands up and reminds us what we’re really surrounding ourselves with and sucking into our lives what it is we might become. If not, we may see games where you can drive spikes through a person’s skull, come up with creative ways by killing a person by cutting their genitalia, and exploring all ways to strangle a man. Oh, wait…I think we’ve got that on a couple of titles.
In my hands
Impressions and Mario Kart friend code to be posted soon. Post yours so we can throw red shells at each other!
Update
Mario Kart Wii is that awesome. Here’s my friend code:
2750-1585-9944
…Nat cutting in. Here’s mine:
1762-3222-0503
back to Tony…
I’m throwing GTA IV in now that the kids are in bed, so I won’t be going back to Mario Kart for a bit.
That social thing
Usually, I’m a pretty early adopter for new technologies and what-not. I started blogging before it was really “blogging,” for example. But sometimes I resist new things, usually for no good reason. Services like Twitter and Tumblr just didn’t seem to make sense to me. I already had a blog — why would I want a micro-blog (Twitter) or a mini-blog (Tumblr)? Then I found a few interesting Tumblogs and signed up for one myself. Then I tried out Twitter and was instantly hooked. How did I not latch on to these earlier?
So I’m now addicted to Twitter. I’ve already hooked a couple friends on it and am actively working on a couple more to catch the wave. I tried to explain it to my wife, but that didn’t go over as well as I’d hoped. Regardless, I’m now a Twitterer (Tweeter?) and completely hooked.
I’ve already started following some of my fellow bloggers and some of you have already found my Twitter feed, but those of you interested in seeing what the fuss is and want to follow the absolutely riveting minutia of my day-to-day life, can follow me on Twitter here.
Beyond Twitter, I’ve looked into Friendfeed, which basically becomes a life-stream of everything I do online. It borders on creepy-stalkerish, and it is complete information overload. I actually hesitate to post a link to my Friendfeed, because it’s a little weird. Does anyone really care what stories I digg? Or what video I recently favorited on YouTube? Maybe someone does. For the truly intrepid, my Friendfeed is here.
Finally, I’ve recently been following a handful of people’s shared items in Google Reader. It’s a great way to find information other people find useful. I haven’t been using it as often as I’d like, but if you’re interested in seeing things I’m sharing, my Google Reader Shared Items feed is here. Yet another form of micro-blogging.
Do you Twitter? Do you Tumbl? Do you share? As resistant as I was at first, now I can’t get enough. Let me know what services you use/like. And of course post links to Twitter feeds and the like in the comments.
A Wonderful Weekend
Let’s tally.
- Our youngest (2) is going on his fourth day in the hospital with a rotavirus.
- Our oldest (5) has a double ear infection.
- My wife and I have not slept in two days. I get the hospital shift tonight.
Mario Kart Wii helps pass the time. I’ve not played it, but my son keeps me informed.
It’s snowed off and on all day. A weird weekend is more like it. A Monday Madness would pale by comparison.
Second Skin, an MMO documentary
I haven’t posted much in the way of MMO’s since I quit EQ2 a few months ago, but this just popped up in my Google alerts and looks interesting: Second Skin, “a quirky documentary about the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games and the people who anchor themselves to computers for up to 18 hours a day.”
In [Nat's] Hands: FFVII:Crisis Core and Okami
I am torn. As hard as I try, I cannot play two games at once.
I’ve only played one Final Fantasy game all the way through. In fact, I played it to almost 100% completion. That’s not entirely true. In college, my PSOne was powered on for a single semester. It played one game the entire time: Final Fantasy VII. There were six of us who would play off the same saved game file. We did everything. Everything. It’s probably one of the fondest gaming memories I’ll ever have. Sometimes, we’ll still chat about it through email.
I’m not a big Final Fantasy fan. I’ve played the aforementioned title and I’ve played FFIX. See, it’s never really a final fantasy. They just keep making more. Actually, I’m more of a chrono-guy.
That’s my setup. Here’s my reveal.
On a whim (I allow myself two “whims” a year) I picked up FFVII: Crisis Core for the PSP. Simply put, this title is currently my PSP Game of the Year. I cannot get enough of it. It’s one of those titles that just hooks you and you never really know why. Maybe it’s the excellent story and presentation, maybe it’s the best cinematic cutscenes of any game I’ve seen, or maybe it’s all the great references to the original game? (Better yet, this game is a prequel and it still has future references).
This game has enveloped me so deep that I want Zack to be Cloud in the FFVII game. The character progression and growth is written in such a way that you don’t even realize it’s happening until you go remember back to where you started.
Now there is a fault. I hate, HATE, HATE the DMW. It’s basically a slot machine that you have no control over that interrupts combat sequences. It’ll occasionally level your character up and toss some bonuses your way. It’ll constantly break the flow of excitement during battle. Necessary? No.
If I was to rate this game, I’d give it a 10. The DMW (I keep wanting to say DMV) makes it an 8. Harsh? Yes. However, Square Enix have been making excellent games for almost 20 years. They should know better.
A week ago I picked up Okami for the Wii. Roger Ebert knows nothing when it comes to games—maybe even art. This game is art in motion, a moving picture worth ten thousand words, a watercolor that doesn’t fade, a…well, you get the idea. Be ready to read as well. A lot. However, it’s all excellent.
I’m only one hour in to the game and it’s been the most unique hour of gaming I’ve ever experienced. How do I describe it? You’re a goddess who has been reincarnated as a white wolf. You mist rid the land of darkness and bring it back to life. Your weapon: a brush.
Yep. You solve problems, rejuvenate nature, experience combat, and paint the town red with your trusty brush. It’s wonderful. This game was made for the Wiimote. The execs at Capcom must be prophets considering the game was made in 2006.
I’m told this game could net a person 40 hours of playtime. Excellent. This may be a game where I do it all. I really don’t have the patience for RPGs, but this may be my exception.
I just find it interesting that the only two games I’m playing right now are RPGs.
Oh, and Ikaruga.
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