Well, last Saturday, I went to GameStop, which is my primary (no, scratch that, only) option for buying video games that are either fun, cheap and inexpensive, or the latest craze that I am so eager to destroy right in front of millions of fans online. (I'm a pessimistic comedian. Unless I like it too, I don't see why people go bollocks-out over it, so I annihilate it.)
I went to buy Heavy Rain (because I really wanted the ancestor to its predecessor, Indigo Prophecy). Unfortunately, oh shite! I don't HAVE a PS3! This is because I prefer to not own every damned gaming console in the world, lest I be officially labeled a mute, Scottish uber-nerd by my, quote-en-quote, "friend", Jack.
So, instead, I had to settle with buying Army of Two.
It... It's not that I don't like Army of Two, per se... I just don't really enjoy playing it. I don't know, Third-Person Shooter games have always had this habit of being absolute trash with me. Like, Gears of War, or Dark Sector.
Well, okay, not Dark Sector.
Why do I hate them so much? Well, I don't want to see my supposedly super-awesome character get gibbed from a stray grenade, to the raucous chorus of "Whoo! The dumb bitch is fucking dead!" from the only-too-eager-to-kill-me enemies. That, and aiming becomes a damned hassle when you're looking over somebody's shoulder and trying to hit a bird shite on a tin can five hundred feet away. Not to mention that your character always seems to have a miserably painful-looking limp in one of his legs when he moves. Just once, I would like to control a soldier who doesn't act like he's running while suffering from a hernia.
I can make an exception for the Splinter Cell series. That game actually uses realistic movement, and there's personally nothing cooler than seeing your character sneak up behind a Spetsnasz soldier, grab him around the throat, and slam his face into the wall so hard that he's dead before the bullet he promptly gets finished off with later. But, here's the thing: Games like those, and Assassin's Creed? They're not TPS games. They're Third Person Stealth games. Maybe not so much Assassin's Creed as Splinter Cell, but I'm not about to make my way through the Action genre when I'm talking about TPS.
Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is, there's not a lot of TPS games that impress or "wow" me. Army of Two is one of the many that don't.
The basic story is about two former U.S. Army Rangers who were fighting a losing war in Somalia, circa 1993 (I believe), who later get hired into a PMC (Private Military Corp, or Private Military Contractors, whichever you prefer), only to find out that their old buddy, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Dalton, has been organizing a conspiracy to make the private sector more powerful than the American military, thereby forcing it out of power for the private sector.
Enter Private First Class Elliot Salem, and his noticeably taller, more muscular, and far better equipped partner, Corporal Tyson Rios, chalk four, U.S. Army Rangers. As if I have any idea what in the bloody hell "chalk four" is supposed to mean. First up is training, with your invisible microphone-whoring friend, Pedro, guiding you along in an obnoxious manner.
I was playing as Tyson Rios, because when I played as Salem on easy mode, I died upwards of one billion times because of his pathetic gear and even worse armor. At least when you get the heavy gear for Tyson, it actually protects him.
So, as the abnormally tall Rios, I jumped over a bar. And crouched under a low opening. And completed the first test: How to make sure you've ever played a video game in your life.
Next up was target practice. Bang bang, target down. Reload. Rinse, lather, repeat, now I've shown that I've played a shooter before.
Next was suppressive fire, drawing aggro, sneaking around, and killing jerks on turrets, thereby proving that I have actually played a shooter, and didn't just stand there wasting ammo because I didn't know where the "Pick Up Your Damn Feet And Bloody Run" buttons were.
Things started to get complicated with the Showing Appreciation/Displeasure commands. By walking up to Salem and pressing A, I initiated a mildly entertaining bout of air-guitaring with assault rifles. Conversely, by pressing the "boom headshot" button, I showed how much I really hated Salem by repeatedly back-handing him across the face, headbutting him, palming the back of his head, punching him in the gut, and again in the face mask, and generally just abusing him for no reason, other than I hated him.
Next, I get to slide into cover. Wooo.
Then I got to toss a grenade, and was mildly reminded of the terrible grenade-aiming physics of Gears of War, only, these were actual grenades, and not Morningstar heads on chains with bombs attached to them. Hilariously, I missed my target, and the grenade bounced back in my face and blew my sorry arse to hell. This made me laugh, and that's hard to come by when I can keep a straight face despite sticking myself with a grenade and having my neck twisted around in impossible positions in Halo. Then again, I have no reason to like Halo, so that could contribute to it.
So next up is how to kill a Heavy. Same idea with the turret guy, but when the turret is actively approaching you, that's another story. Oh, and you have to kill him from behind. No exceptions. Not even a damn rocket launcher. So, I put Salem in suppressive mode, turned invisible (because American soldiers totally turn invisible or red when dealing with aggro), sneaked up behind the guy, and grabbed aggro. For the rest of my life, I will never know how I did that, because Salem had all the aggro, and our guns were the same caliber.
Guess that's what I get for playing a giant instead of a snarky snagglepus of a shitebag soldier. (Achievement Unlocked: "SSSS")
Anyhow, then I learned that I have a GPS. For once. In my life.
And then I shot more targets. Supposedly, at the same time as Salem. (In reality, he was a second off the mark.)
Then I got locked in a cage (Because Pedro sucks), and Salem had to press a button. Sounds easy, right?
WRONG. This is the military, stupid.
I'd go into detail, but there were too many soldiers, and my screen was so red from the damage I was taking that I could hardly see anything.
So, I'll just skip to Back-To-Back sequences.
These are the most enjoyable part of Army of Two, aside from watching your arse go flying from a rogue grenade, or kicking a terrorist so hard in the bollocks that he literally gets lifted off his feet and thrown back a few meters.
Basically, you stand back to back (ha ha ha) with your partner and slow-mo kill anybody and everybody who isn't you. And that's exactly what I did. And boy, did I go about it gracefully. I almost heard a ballet song while dead bodies went flying arse-over-tea-kettle in slow motion.
Finally: I blew up Salem.
XD Not really, I just sent him downrange into an explosive trap which mildly fecked him up. Unfortunately, if I were to actually kill Salem, I would lose, so I had to go and heal him. Easy, right?
WRONG. This is the military, stupid. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
Who would've thought that America was losing the war when we had so many expendable soldiers in the training fields? I must have gone through two hundred of the jerks before they finally allowed me to heal Salem in peace. (Achievement Unlocked: "Suspenseful Bastard")
So, finally, I get to the actual game. And of course, they give me the same terrible guns as I started out with. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the M16 (or, "S-System", as Army of Two calls it), but why must it suck so hard? The damage, when fully upgraded, was less than half that of an AK-47, which could be as weak as a pistol, or as strong as a sniper rifle, with just one of its upgrades. And I don't even like the AK-47. Why are the strongest guns always the ones I hate?
I feel it reasonable to mention that one of the many "assault rifles" available was a portable Vulcan minigun. Yeah, I'm not joking. It cost like, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Anyhow, so I'm in Somalia with my crap rifle and my crap pistol and my crap sniper rifle (Two of the three were able to be un-crapped, though), and my crap partner makes the first biggest fart of a decision when I'm trying to sneak up on a group of Somalians:
He yells at me to blow their heads open.
Let's put two and two together here: When sneaking up on a baddie, why is it a bad idea to yell at your partner? Simple answer: You die.
Thankfully, I didn't die, but that was because they all had really bad guns. I gave Salem a good backhand for that. I don't think he appreciated it, because he headbutt me back. The little prick.
So, after what felt like an hour of being stuck behind the same old destroyed and gutted car as everybody else on the map, I finally meet Phillip Clyde, and I was none too happy about it. After reading the bare basic reviews of the game (movement sucks; characters unrealistic; you know), I found out that Clyde was labeled as one of the biggest shitebags to ever be put in a video game, and I could see why. "Hey, how's it going?" "Get your fucking hand away from my fucking face or I'll fucking kill you." Nice guy, isn't he?
Anyhow, Clyde actually gives me some good pointers, like tearing off the door of an already destroyed and gutted car (thereby gutting it even worse) and using it as a shield against bullets. The bad part is, I move about as fast as a guy carrying a car door in a crouched position should, which was about the equivalent of a snail. On steroids. That, and Salem is my backseat gunner, and he's completely exposed, so while I've got all my fronts covered, his arse is taking bullets for my valentine. (Yes, I went there.) So, as one might imagine, he tends to go down for the count a lot, and in the worst spots.
I tried to go for an achievement that required me to beat up people with my shield, but every time I tried, god damned Salem would steal the kill from me. I finally resorted to headbutting him until he stopped being a bugger. Which was never.
When Idiot Salem and I finally got to where we needed to be (that is, a hotel just up the street), we got thrown in a real-life back-to-back. And we sucked at it, because Salem was stuck on the "retard" setting, and threw grenades.
Yes. Grenades.
My fail-gun just fired backwards because of Salem.
Well, that was all well and good, just like my grammar was all well and good up until this point. We killed Al Moalim (Hey, wait a minute), got blown up, laughed at by Clyde, attacked by a billion soldiers, extracted, and thus ended the prologue mission of the game.
Only four more missions to go? I don't think so, mates. This farce has been going on for eight days now, I'm done with Army of Two.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Narrow Scope: [Prototype]
Could my luck with video games get any worse?
Started playing Prototype again, first time in about seven months. And like I expected, it didn't turn out as well as people claimed.
Aside from the glitchy, almost inferior controls (I liked Assassin's Creed better, because at least you didn't move so fast that you might attract the attention of the armed forces littered around New York, and plus, Ezio actually listens to his controls), the only part about this game I liked was that I got to upgrade with fluent frequency. But, as must all good things, this tirade of upgrading soon dwindled to a standstill, because I couldn't seem to complete the mission where I have to lure McMullin out, then run like bloody hell and hide under a bridge when he doesn't fall for my little trick. And why can't I complete this mission?
Oh, it's quite simple, mates. They send in like, an endless stream of soldiers, tanks, APCs, helicopters, detector droids, and the infected Hunters seemed to think that aggravating the situation further was helping my case any.
Well, bloody hello to you too, Elizabeth Greene.
I finally got past that mission, and wonder of wonders, I almost immediately get cheap shot by a Specialist with a grenade launcher, a shock stick, and a host of soldier buddies and infected pissants. And despite winning the fight, he basically throws out his wild card before he's depleted his hand and stabs me in the back with a needle that basically gives me Protagonist Cancer.
(I should write a TV Tropes article for that...)
I finally cure the cancer after putting up with Raglend's bullshite complaints that I apparently was too blind to see the hordes of infected coming RIGHT THE HELL AT ME, and for compensation, I get a cool suit of armor, and a sword arm.
That soon prove to be USELESS.
Over all, I don't recall ever hating a game as hard as I hate this, and Eragon doesn't count. But Prototype has just taken the gold, mates.
Started playing Prototype again, first time in about seven months. And like I expected, it didn't turn out as well as people claimed.
Aside from the glitchy, almost inferior controls (I liked Assassin's Creed better, because at least you didn't move so fast that you might attract the attention of the armed forces littered around New York, and plus, Ezio actually listens to his controls), the only part about this game I liked was that I got to upgrade with fluent frequency. But, as must all good things, this tirade of upgrading soon dwindled to a standstill, because I couldn't seem to complete the mission where I have to lure McMullin out, then run like bloody hell and hide under a bridge when he doesn't fall for my little trick. And why can't I complete this mission?
Oh, it's quite simple, mates. They send in like, an endless stream of soldiers, tanks, APCs, helicopters, detector droids, and the infected Hunters seemed to think that aggravating the situation further was helping my case any.
Well, bloody hello to you too, Elizabeth Greene.
I finally got past that mission, and wonder of wonders, I almost immediately get cheap shot by a Specialist with a grenade launcher, a shock stick, and a host of soldier buddies and infected pissants. And despite winning the fight, he basically throws out his wild card before he's depleted his hand and stabs me in the back with a needle that basically gives me Protagonist Cancer.
(I should write a TV Tropes article for that...)
I finally cure the cancer after putting up with Raglend's bullshite complaints that I apparently was too blind to see the hordes of infected coming RIGHT THE HELL AT ME, and for compensation, I get a cool suit of armor, and a sword arm.
That soon prove to be USELESS.
Over all, I don't recall ever hating a game as hard as I hate this, and Eragon doesn't count. But Prototype has just taken the gold, mates.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Narrow Scope: Halo REACH
Hello, chaps! Long time no see, eh?
Sorry about that. My computer is officially, and undeniably, dead and gone, and I shan't be getting a new one for a good bloody time.
In the meantime, I use what time I have to myself to steal my sister's (admittedly near-dead itself) computer.
Hence, this new entry (finally).
Got around to playing Halo REACH, and I have to say... it was the biggest waste of my time. I just don't like it; I've never liked the Halo games, nevermind my owning game 3, but this just confirmed why.
Oh, sure, you have nice graphics. So does every other game and its mother. What's that? New weapons? Whoop dee doo. Oh, you say multiplayer is superb? Gee, isn't it too bad that I don't give a bloody shite about multiplayer?
I played the campaign, and hated it from the word go. I don't wish to explain why, because I only have two hours to myself, and if I were to go into detail about all my problems... Let's just say, I'd get caught red-handed by my sister, three to four hours later, because I'd still be sitting here. It was bad, let me tell you.
*Cue rabid ball-happy fans of Halo throwing out empty death threats and acting like utter meatheads in the presence of somebody who knows a good video game when he plays one.*
Let's just segment what I hate about it, from all that I'm willing to talk about:
1. I hate the weaponry in this game. As in, I REALLY hate it. Scope-blooming, I don't mind. That's never been an issue for me before. Grenade bounce and damage radius? Meh. Modern Warfare 2 was worse. But I hate how lack-luster the weaponry department is, in a game where guns and cars are about the only real factor. It takes me three clips to take down one Elite, all shots hitting him in the head, yet one shot from an armor lock kills me? Might I please call bullshite here?
Before you get all rage-happy over these simple terms, take into effect that I had a sniper rifle. And my shots next to never miss with sniper rifles, so I was landing every shot.
2. I hate the maps. Yeah, I totally want to play sniper on a map as big as my thumb, who was the freaking moron who thought up THAT idea? Conversely: A pistol will TOTALLY be useful on a map bigger than three Frigates put together. The game creators really didn't possess any brains when making this game, I can tell. Then again, I was playing on mostly user-made maps that my friends forced me to play multiplayer to experience.
And that, lads, is the only time I will ever go on multiplayer.
3. I hate multiplayer. Do I really need to say it. The game is 80% Multiplayer.
4. I hate the space combat level. Bloody hell, I hate ALL the air combat levels.
5. I hate the scene where Noble 6 dies. It wasn't emotional, it made me laugh. I'd feel more sorry for her if her armor didn't make her look ridiculously fat, too.
6. Lord, do I ever hate the other players of this game. ... went up against players with really dumb names (none shall be mentioned), none of them knew how to play right, or if they did, they always screamed their success as if it was the best thing in the world. (Idiots.) And then they turn to me and start insulting my lack of kills because I was hiding behind something with a sniper rifle, picking people off from a safe distance.
"Ha! I have three hundred kills, you only have ten!" And I also never died. So, who loses here?
7. I'll just say it now, I hate the Announcer in this game. "Five. Minutes. REMAINING." I can see the clock, I'm not blind. And do I really need my ego boosted by "HEADSHOT!" or "DOUBLE KILL!" every time it happens? You know why I like Call of Duty over this game? Because it never shouted how cool I was. It gave me shiteloads of experience points (I was in multiplayer split-screen against myself just for the hell of weapon upgrades), and some cool (ACTUALLY COOL, might I add) music to boot. And if I leveled up, it didn't go "LEVEL UP!" in some faux Duke Nukem voice in order to make me feel special and GUHN EJIMUHCAYTID.
So, in short, I would give this game a two out of five, for the graphics and ragdoll hilarity. Nothing else.
Sorry about that. My computer is officially, and undeniably, dead and gone, and I shan't be getting a new one for a good bloody time.
In the meantime, I use what time I have to myself to steal my sister's (admittedly near-dead itself) computer.
Hence, this new entry (finally).
Got around to playing Halo REACH, and I have to say... it was the biggest waste of my time. I just don't like it; I've never liked the Halo games, nevermind my owning game 3, but this just confirmed why.
Oh, sure, you have nice graphics. So does every other game and its mother. What's that? New weapons? Whoop dee doo. Oh, you say multiplayer is superb? Gee, isn't it too bad that I don't give a bloody shite about multiplayer?
I played the campaign, and hated it from the word go. I don't wish to explain why, because I only have two hours to myself, and if I were to go into detail about all my problems... Let's just say, I'd get caught red-handed by my sister, three to four hours later, because I'd still be sitting here. It was bad, let me tell you.
*Cue rabid ball-happy fans of Halo throwing out empty death threats and acting like utter meatheads in the presence of somebody who knows a good video game when he plays one.*
Let's just segment what I hate about it, from all that I'm willing to talk about:
1. I hate the weaponry in this game. As in, I REALLY hate it. Scope-blooming, I don't mind. That's never been an issue for me before. Grenade bounce and damage radius? Meh. Modern Warfare 2 was worse. But I hate how lack-luster the weaponry department is, in a game where guns and cars are about the only real factor. It takes me three clips to take down one Elite, all shots hitting him in the head, yet one shot from an armor lock kills me? Might I please call bullshite here?
Before you get all rage-happy over these simple terms, take into effect that I had a sniper rifle. And my shots next to never miss with sniper rifles, so I was landing every shot.
2. I hate the maps. Yeah, I totally want to play sniper on a map as big as my thumb, who was the freaking moron who thought up THAT idea? Conversely: A pistol will TOTALLY be useful on a map bigger than three Frigates put together. The game creators really didn't possess any brains when making this game, I can tell. Then again, I was playing on mostly user-made maps that my friends forced me to play multiplayer to experience.
And that, lads, is the only time I will ever go on multiplayer.
3. I hate multiplayer. Do I really need to say it. The game is 80% Multiplayer.
4. I hate the space combat level. Bloody hell, I hate ALL the air combat levels.
5. I hate the scene where Noble 6 dies. It wasn't emotional, it made me laugh. I'd feel more sorry for her if her armor didn't make her look ridiculously fat, too.
6. Lord, do I ever hate the other players of this game. ... went up against players with really dumb names (none shall be mentioned), none of them knew how to play right, or if they did, they always screamed their success as if it was the best thing in the world. (Idiots.) And then they turn to me and start insulting my lack of kills because I was hiding behind something with a sniper rifle, picking people off from a safe distance.
"Ha! I have three hundred kills, you only have ten!" And I also never died. So, who loses here?
7. I'll just say it now, I hate the Announcer in this game. "Five. Minutes. REMAINING." I can see the clock, I'm not blind. And do I really need my ego boosted by "HEADSHOT!" or "DOUBLE KILL!" every time it happens? You know why I like Call of Duty over this game? Because it never shouted how cool I was. It gave me shiteloads of experience points (I was in multiplayer split-screen against myself just for the hell of weapon upgrades), and some cool (ACTUALLY COOL, might I add) music to boot. And if I leveled up, it didn't go "LEVEL UP!" in some faux Duke Nukem voice in order to make me feel special and GUHN EJIMUHCAYTID.
So, in short, I would give this game a two out of five, for the graphics and ragdoll hilarity. Nothing else.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Narrow Scope: Splinter Cell: Conviction
Spent five or six hours with my newly (rented) game, Splinter Cell: Conviction. Played through a bit of single player, decided it was decently challenging, and figured co-op with Seamus would be about the same.
It's not often when I'm so dreadfully wrong - and I am usually wrong, just not DREADFULLY so - and this time, it bit Seamus and I in the bollocks like never before.
So, for co-op, you start off in good old Russia (because god forbid you infiltrate any OTHER countries outside of China, Russia, the Middle East, and America), playing as an American Splinter Cell named Archer, and a Russian Splinter Cell named Kestrel. I was Kestrel, and Seamus was Archer. Seamus had played a good number of Splinter Cell games, while I had only played two, but had done so so many times that I could now clear the game perfectly in under an hour, so we were both pretty savvy with the game as it were. The only problem? The controls got a bit changed from the old games.
Meh, no problem, eh? So the controls will get some taking used to. And so what if you're only in stealth when the screen turns black and white? Not a problem-
Wait, where's my night vision? Where's my SC-20K? What's going on here?!
Immediately, we realized a lot of things had changed about Splinter Cell. For instance, there was only Sonar vision, which gave you a bright outline of any enemies nearby. Then, your loadout always started with an EMP, EMP Grenades, and frags. You got a silenced pistol of choice, so I took an accurate pistol, while Seamus went more with power. When we realized that the main characters of co-op were not Sam Fisher and Anonymous Agent #2, that was also a downer, but we got over that because Archer and Kestrel were awesome enough to make up for the loss. And what was also helpful was when we entered a new room, our objectives splayed themselves out on the walls like that music video for Airplanes by B.O.B. and Haley Williams. (Because I honestly enjoy being blinded by painfully stark-white writing on pitch-black walls. You know, because I shot out all the lights. Okay, yeah, sarcasm doesn't translate well across the internet.)
After trying to infiltrate the Russian Embassy for about three hours, because the cops in that place are UBER SENSITIVE to having lights shot out, Seamus and I finally managed to get to a save point, which usually appears in the form of a weapon stash. (As the writings on the wall clearly stated. I just thought it was a stash of crates that we couldn't use until I saw the command to swap weapons. Thank god there were two, otherwise Seamus would've been running on pistol ammo for the rest of the mission.) About that time, we learn that we need to OBSERVE BYKHOV.
Why, thank you, large writing on the wall, I would never have guessed.
By the way, sorry for the bloody slow going here, my computer crashed like a Banshee with a broken jet propeller in Halo. No, it didn't explode into a blue ball of flaming bits, and no, I didn't die from the height drop, but it felt like I did, because I just lost a shite load of information that I was keeping on there, and now I have to commandeer Seamus' laptop when he isn't looking until I get it fixed.
Have to say, though: He has a bloody fast computer.
It's not often when I'm so dreadfully wrong - and I am usually wrong, just not DREADFULLY so - and this time, it bit Seamus and I in the bollocks like never before.
So, for co-op, you start off in good old Russia (because god forbid you infiltrate any OTHER countries outside of China, Russia, the Middle East, and America), playing as an American Splinter Cell named Archer, and a Russian Splinter Cell named Kestrel. I was Kestrel, and Seamus was Archer. Seamus had played a good number of Splinter Cell games, while I had only played two, but had done so so many times that I could now clear the game perfectly in under an hour, so we were both pretty savvy with the game as it were. The only problem? The controls got a bit changed from the old games.
Meh, no problem, eh? So the controls will get some taking used to. And so what if you're only in stealth when the screen turns black and white? Not a problem-
Wait, where's my night vision? Where's my SC-20K? What's going on here?!
Immediately, we realized a lot of things had changed about Splinter Cell. For instance, there was only Sonar vision, which gave you a bright outline of any enemies nearby. Then, your loadout always started with an EMP, EMP Grenades, and frags. You got a silenced pistol of choice, so I took an accurate pistol, while Seamus went more with power. When we realized that the main characters of co-op were not Sam Fisher and Anonymous Agent #2, that was also a downer, but we got over that because Archer and Kestrel were awesome enough to make up for the loss. And what was also helpful was when we entered a new room, our objectives splayed themselves out on the walls like that music video for Airplanes by B.O.B. and Haley Williams. (Because I honestly enjoy being blinded by painfully stark-white writing on pitch-black walls. You know, because I shot out all the lights. Okay, yeah, sarcasm doesn't translate well across the internet.)
After trying to infiltrate the Russian Embassy for about three hours, because the cops in that place are UBER SENSITIVE to having lights shot out, Seamus and I finally managed to get to a save point, which usually appears in the form of a weapon stash. (As the writings on the wall clearly stated. I just thought it was a stash of crates that we couldn't use until I saw the command to swap weapons. Thank god there were two, otherwise Seamus would've been running on pistol ammo for the rest of the mission.) About that time, we learn that we need to OBSERVE BYKHOV.
Why, thank you, large writing on the wall, I would never have guessed.
By the way, sorry for the bloody slow going here, my computer crashed like a Banshee with a broken jet propeller in Halo. No, it didn't explode into a blue ball of flaming bits, and no, I didn't die from the height drop, but it felt like I did, because I just lost a shite load of information that I was keeping on there, and now I have to commandeer Seamus' laptop when he isn't looking until I get it fixed.
Have to say, though: He has a bloody fast computer.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Narrow Scope: Team Fortress 2 Shenanigans
<While playing TF2>
Leigh: And you decided to start a Jarate war with me because...?
Shamus: Just figured I'd try and see what it's like to have a Jarate fight without the Jarate? Fuck, I don't know...
Jack: You know, speaking of fu-
Shamus/Leigh: NO.
Jack: Aw, come oooooon! I didn't even get to the good part!
Greg: Still no.
Jack: Fuck you!
<lolAxtinguisher>
Greg: MOTHERfuck!
Leigh: And you guys wonder why I'm so quiet.
Shamus: Have you EVER sworn, Leigh?
Leigh: Maybe once, under extreme stress. The rest of the time is usually either because I'm not watching what I say, or because I'm making a really good joke that requires it.
Shamus: Makes sense to me.
Jack: Hey, let's invite some random noob on here and fucking destroy his ass.
Leigh: Uh, let's not and say we never did.
Greg: Or, we could invite the lady-peoples and have a go at each other.
Leigh: You kidding, mate? Minx would destroy you.
Shamus: Yeah, but not you, Leigh, because as usual, you've mastered the game like a prick.
Leigh: Well, yeah...
Jack: Fuck you Leigh, us not-cool gamers are going over here.
Leigh: 'Kay, but, didn't you just lay down a massive bomb trap over there?
Jack: Dowha-?
<lolbigexplosion>
Shamus: Motherfucking Jack, you fucking knicker-wearing tool!
Leigh: Bloody hell...
Jack: They're called CAPRI PANTS in AMERICA, fucker.
Leigh: Why, again, did I agree to play Team Fortress with you guys?
Greg: Hey, I don't know, I'm just enjoying the show.
Leigh: Right. That's it, I'm spy-killing all your backsides.
<One massive spy-kill fest later>
Leigh: And what have we learned about using the Soldier's grenade taunt on a spy disguised as a Scout?
Jack: It's fucking pointless.
Leigh: Good boy.
Leigh: And you decided to start a Jarate war with me because...?
Shamus: Just figured I'd try and see what it's like to have a Jarate fight without the Jarate? Fuck, I don't know...
Jack: You know, speaking of fu-
Shamus/Leigh: NO.
Jack: Aw, come oooooon! I didn't even get to the good part!
Greg: Still no.
Jack: Fuck you!
<lolAxtinguisher>
Greg: MOTHERfuck!
Leigh: And you guys wonder why I'm so quiet.
Shamus: Have you EVER sworn, Leigh?
Leigh: Maybe once, under extreme stress. The rest of the time is usually either because I'm not watching what I say, or because I'm making a really good joke that requires it.
Shamus: Makes sense to me.
Jack: Hey, let's invite some random noob on here and fucking destroy his ass.
Leigh: Uh, let's not and say we never did.
Greg: Or, we could invite the lady-peoples and have a go at each other.
Leigh: You kidding, mate? Minx would destroy you.
Shamus: Yeah, but not you, Leigh, because as usual, you've mastered the game like a prick.
Leigh: Well, yeah...
Jack: Fuck you Leigh, us not-cool gamers are going over here.
Leigh: 'Kay, but, didn't you just lay down a massive bomb trap over there?
Jack: Dowha-?
<lolbigexplosion>
Shamus: Motherfucking Jack, you fucking knicker-wearing tool!
Leigh: Bloody hell...
Jack: They're called CAPRI PANTS in AMERICA, fucker.
Leigh: Why, again, did I agree to play Team Fortress with you guys?
Greg: Hey, I don't know, I'm just enjoying the show.
Leigh: Right. That's it, I'm spy-killing all your backsides.
<One massive spy-kill fest later>
Leigh: And what have we learned about using the Soldier's grenade taunt on a spy disguised as a Scout?
Jack: It's fucking pointless.
Leigh: Good boy.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Narrow Scope: Mirror's Edge
Mirror's Edge. A creative title for an equally creative game centered around Traceurs - a.k.a. building runners - who secretly and illegally pass information on by hand in a world where movement and information are heavily guarded by authorities and the ever-present eye of Big Brother.
It's a game about betrayal, conspiracy, heroism, and overall first-person action.
That said, I am not without my beefs on this game.
First of all:
WHAT MIRRORS?! You run around on rooftops, and maybe the ground (once) and maybe a boat (again: once). That's all you ever do. Even the "combat" is fairly limited, as I really didn't have the patience to kill every bad guy I could see. You know - since this game was about fluid motion and unpredictability and how well you can use your environment, not "let's see how hard I can Bruce Lee this guy's face into the dirt".
To address my second argument against this game, let's talk about gun physics. Okay, sure, I can see where carrying a big ol' LMG would make free running fairly difficult. Those are heavy guns. And yeah, I can see why it's not so great to jump around on buildings with a shotgun - which is a fairly fragile weapon, despite its power - and roof-jumping with a sniper rifle is rather difficult when the thing's twice as long as you are.
But, a PISTOL?
I can't free-run with a pistol?
Well, I take that back, I can - just not as well as if I were unarmed. See, this is why you should do what Lieutenant Miller did, Faith, and invest in dual shoulder holsters. I mean, pistols are pretty durable. If you drop one, then kick it, it's still going to work, with minor flaws because, well, you just kicked an already highly unstable weapon of killing power. And I say "highly unstable" because those things are like a ball balanced on a pin, one wrong move can completely ruin the thing. But sans the obvious damage, pistols are durable weapons, and they're light, so a measly four or five pounds of gun in your pocket shouldn't add up to so much failure when you're going full speed across a rooftop. And yet I can't jump the building like, three feet in front of me.
Why?
I dunno, ask the implacable game physics.
Now, to address my third point: Reaction times. This game is all about picture-perfect precision and timing. One slip, and it's fifty stories of pure pelvic-region-shattering death for you. But, this same timing is apparently even worse when trying to disarm enemies. Like, before the gun even turns red, you have to hit the action button, otherwise, the guy pummels you, then adds insult to injury by shooting you point-blank to finish you off. Or, that's what he did to me. I dunno, I think it might have been because of my lack of melee.
You decide.
Next: The free running in general. Movement is kinda' touchy and hard to get used to. If Faith fails to react to the jump button, buh-bye. If Faith reacts too slowly to the melee button, buh-bye. If Faith jumps instead of wall running?
Say it with me now,
BUH-BYE.
Needless to say, there's very little room for screw-ups in this game. As in, the window of opportunity closes a split second after it opens, so you'd best be quick on the draw, or you'd best have been saving your Reaction Time up to whatever point you're at that requires mashing of buttons in order to complete a vital-to-one's-health task, because otherwise, put quite simply mate, you're screwed.
By the way, did I happen to mention Traceur in there?
Well, a lot of people get this idea that this game is based on free running, which is basically a flashy form of Parkour not really used for escape methods. Basically, it's just there for fun. Parkour is the "modern-day martial arts" discipline which states that the quickest route from point A to point B is in a straight line, and in order to get to that point B in a straight line, you must learn to go over, under, around or through any obstacles in your way. Faith is a Parkour practitioner in every sense of the word, from escaping the authorities with her free-running capabilities to tracking down baddies with said capabilities. In every notion of the term, Faith is a Traceuse. End of story there.
But, this poses a problem, for me especially:
That means she's really freaking hard to control.
As in, if you're not so fluid in your motions that when you roll from that fall, you're already going into that step jump onto that red pole right in front of you, you can just forget about making that jump without dying. I've tried several times. You have to be perfect with your movements in this game.
And perfection is something I've yet to achieve in any video game.
I'm eagerly awaiting news on if they're going to make a new Mirror's Edge game, because despite my complaints, there are many things good to be said for a game that does first person Parkour so well. Needless to say, even though I had a lot to rant about in this game, it was quite possibly one of my absolute favorites.
It's a game about betrayal, conspiracy, heroism, and overall first-person action.
That said, I am not without my beefs on this game.
First of all:
WHAT MIRRORS?! You run around on rooftops, and maybe the ground (once) and maybe a boat (again: once). That's all you ever do. Even the "combat" is fairly limited, as I really didn't have the patience to kill every bad guy I could see. You know - since this game was about fluid motion and unpredictability and how well you can use your environment, not "let's see how hard I can Bruce Lee this guy's face into the dirt".
To address my second argument against this game, let's talk about gun physics. Okay, sure, I can see where carrying a big ol' LMG would make free running fairly difficult. Those are heavy guns. And yeah, I can see why it's not so great to jump around on buildings with a shotgun - which is a fairly fragile weapon, despite its power - and roof-jumping with a sniper rifle is rather difficult when the thing's twice as long as you are.
But, a PISTOL?
I can't free-run with a pistol?
Well, I take that back, I can - just not as well as if I were unarmed. See, this is why you should do what Lieutenant Miller did, Faith, and invest in dual shoulder holsters. I mean, pistols are pretty durable. If you drop one, then kick it, it's still going to work, with minor flaws because, well, you just kicked an already highly unstable weapon of killing power. And I say "highly unstable" because those things are like a ball balanced on a pin, one wrong move can completely ruin the thing. But sans the obvious damage, pistols are durable weapons, and they're light, so a measly four or five pounds of gun in your pocket shouldn't add up to so much failure when you're going full speed across a rooftop. And yet I can't jump the building like, three feet in front of me.
Why?
I dunno, ask the implacable game physics.
Now, to address my third point: Reaction times. This game is all about picture-perfect precision and timing. One slip, and it's fifty stories of pure pelvic-region-shattering death for you. But, this same timing is apparently even worse when trying to disarm enemies. Like, before the gun even turns red, you have to hit the action button, otherwise, the guy pummels you, then adds insult to injury by shooting you point-blank to finish you off. Or, that's what he did to me. I dunno, I think it might have been because of my lack of melee.
You decide.
Next: The free running in general. Movement is kinda' touchy and hard to get used to. If Faith fails to react to the jump button, buh-bye. If Faith reacts too slowly to the melee button, buh-bye. If Faith jumps instead of wall running?
Say it with me now,
BUH-BYE.
Needless to say, there's very little room for screw-ups in this game. As in, the window of opportunity closes a split second after it opens, so you'd best be quick on the draw, or you'd best have been saving your Reaction Time up to whatever point you're at that requires mashing of buttons in order to complete a vital-to-one's-health task, because otherwise, put quite simply mate, you're screwed.
By the way, did I happen to mention Traceur in there?
Well, a lot of people get this idea that this game is based on free running, which is basically a flashy form of Parkour not really used for escape methods. Basically, it's just there for fun. Parkour is the "modern-day martial arts" discipline which states that the quickest route from point A to point B is in a straight line, and in order to get to that point B in a straight line, you must learn to go over, under, around or through any obstacles in your way. Faith is a Parkour practitioner in every sense of the word, from escaping the authorities with her free-running capabilities to tracking down baddies with said capabilities. In every notion of the term, Faith is a Traceuse. End of story there.
But, this poses a problem, for me especially:
That means she's really freaking hard to control.
As in, if you're not so fluid in your motions that when you roll from that fall, you're already going into that step jump onto that red pole right in front of you, you can just forget about making that jump without dying. I've tried several times. You have to be perfect with your movements in this game.
And perfection is something I've yet to achieve in any video game.
I'm eagerly awaiting news on if they're going to make a new Mirror's Edge game, because despite my complaints, there are many things good to be said for a game that does first person Parkour so well. Needless to say, even though I had a lot to rant about in this game, it was quite possibly one of my absolute favorites.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Narrow Scope: Moderne Warfare Due
The old entry I was planning on submitting was way too long and tedious for me to finish, and full of bull on all fronts that I know would have made me suffer if I had posted them, so let me just sum it up in one quick little paragraph:
yadda yadda yadda, hate the Tar-21, yadda yadda yadda, the shotguns in this game are mostly crap, yadda yadda yadda, AK47 w/ grenade launcher, silencer, and heat scope is pwnmaster, yadda yadda yadda, why oh why did they remove the SVD from online gameplay? Yadda yadda yadda, I find it hilarious that you think a Stinger/RPG-7 combo would work in a campaign. Yadda yadda yadda, lolFAMAS, yadda yadda yadda AUG is basically an automatic sniper rifle, yadda yadda yadda, Price is pwnmaster, yadda yadda yadda go straight to the devil's bollocks, Shepard! yadda yadda yadda, Makarov is so full of it, yadda yadda yadda, Je me conforme à aucunes lois de l'homme ou de jeu, et pour cet acte de trahison mon corps mourra, yadda yadda yadda, why use sniper rifles when an ACOG sight on any gun works just as well? Yadda yadda yadda, SOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAP!!!, yadda yadda yadda, But-but! I liked Ghost! Shepard, you evil man! Yadda yadda yadda, knife in brain makes teh thinky thoughts go thpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbp! Yadda yadda yadda, game over, and I still lose.
Basically, that was what I had written, in a nutshell. And most of it was a farce.
I love how Infinity Ward removes one really good game from online play because "It's too powerful", yet they keep all kinds of other cheap guns because apparently, having one hundred rounds of ammo plus a nine hundred round surplus is just peachy, or because nobody is going to live long with a UMP.
Does this site employ emotes? Because I'd like to use the rolls-eyes one right about now.
*heavy dramatic sigh* write me when Infinity Ward does something right... or when Treyarch starts doing Call of Duty games again.
yadda yadda yadda, hate the Tar-21, yadda yadda yadda, the shotguns in this game are mostly crap, yadda yadda yadda, AK47 w/ grenade launcher, silencer, and heat scope is pwnmaster, yadda yadda yadda, why oh why did they remove the SVD from online gameplay? Yadda yadda yadda, I find it hilarious that you think a Stinger/RPG-7 combo would work in a campaign. Yadda yadda yadda, lolFAMAS, yadda yadda yadda AUG is basically an automatic sniper rifle, yadda yadda yadda, Price is pwnmaster, yadda yadda yadda go straight to the devil's bollocks, Shepard! yadda yadda yadda, Makarov is so full of it, yadda yadda yadda, Je me conforme à aucunes lois de l'homme ou de jeu, et pour cet acte de trahison mon corps mourra, yadda yadda yadda, why use sniper rifles when an ACOG sight on any gun works just as well? Yadda yadda yadda, SOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAP!!!, yadda yadda yadda, But-but! I liked Ghost! Shepard, you evil man! Yadda yadda yadda, knife in brain makes teh thinky thoughts go thpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbp! Yadda yadda yadda, game over, and I still lose.
Basically, that was what I had written, in a nutshell. And most of it was a farce.
I love how Infinity Ward removes one really good game from online play because "It's too powerful", yet they keep all kinds of other cheap guns because apparently, having one hundred rounds of ammo plus a nine hundred round surplus is just peachy, or because nobody is going to live long with a UMP.
Does this site employ emotes? Because I'd like to use the rolls-eyes one right about now.
*heavy dramatic sigh* write me when Infinity Ward does something right... or when Treyarch starts doing Call of Duty games again.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Narrow Scope: This Is What Happens When I Don't Get Sleep.
Three in the damn morning, can't seem to wake up Shamus and get him out of the damn recliner so that I can go to sleep (see, my room doesn't have a bed. We ditched the bed in place of chairs so that we could all have a spot to sit when gaming, if it were in my room), suddenly have this implacable urge to say damn a lot (damn damn damn damn damn...), so I might as well post something, yeah?
What to do, what to do... Ah, right, I'll just babble on about something or another until I pass out on my keyboard. God only knows how I'm even managing to type legibly at this point.
~~~
Okay, after I finished typing that, I fell asleep.
Well, let's just do the babble anyhow, yeah?
I made the mistake of playing Eragon the other day, and suddenly the difficulty jump of NOD in Croatia during my boredom playthrough of Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars 3 didn't seem to annoy me as much anymore. I mean, considering that they wiped my base off the map in a matter of seconds where normally I would be taking them to task with little struggle, that's saying something. That says that Eragon had to be at least ten times worse in order for me to forget how badly NOD killed my sorry arse in Croatia.
Holy crap, I wasn't kidding there, folks.
First level, training level. I had just gotten done watching a really bad cutscene with even worse music and narration. I figured, okay, so the game has bad voice acting and music. So long as it plays well, I really don't care.
Mates, it didn't even do THAT much.
Along with terrible animation and voice acting and music, this game's mechanics are crap in every sense of the word. Eragon is such a pansy that he can't even jump a foot off the ground, it takes a whole five seconds to fire a fine-aimed arrow, which doesn't even do hardly anything, you have a sword that, even when upgraded, does miserable damage, the combos are extremely limited and not all that exciting, and you move so slowly that any half-brained Urgal could catch up to you with no problem. In fact, all the enemies move really fast, until they get close to you, that is. However, your speed never increases.
Your allies, when and if you play long enough to meet them, are just about as useless as Eragon is, even when theirUbercharge Magical Combo Swords are activated. Murtagh's only good skill is with a bow and arrow, and he even sucks at THAT. Brom's just a drunkard with a sword who used to be a dragon rider, and he dies after your first Durza fight.
Oh, and Durza shouldn't be called a boss; he should be called a mildly infuriating pain in one's spine.
I'd go on, but I really don't want to keep talking about this game.
In that regard, we'll move on to something more interesting.
Next time, that is.
What to do, what to do... Ah, right, I'll just babble on about something or another until I pass out on my keyboard. God only knows how I'm even managing to type legibly at this point.
~~~
Okay, after I finished typing that, I fell asleep.
Well, let's just do the babble anyhow, yeah?
I made the mistake of playing Eragon the other day, and suddenly the difficulty jump of NOD in Croatia during my boredom playthrough of Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars 3 didn't seem to annoy me as much anymore. I mean, considering that they wiped my base off the map in a matter of seconds where normally I would be taking them to task with little struggle, that's saying something. That says that Eragon had to be at least ten times worse in order for me to forget how badly NOD killed my sorry arse in Croatia.
Holy crap, I wasn't kidding there, folks.
First level, training level. I had just gotten done watching a really bad cutscene with even worse music and narration. I figured, okay, so the game has bad voice acting and music. So long as it plays well, I really don't care.
Mates, it didn't even do THAT much.
Along with terrible animation and voice acting and music, this game's mechanics are crap in every sense of the word. Eragon is such a pansy that he can't even jump a foot off the ground, it takes a whole five seconds to fire a fine-aimed arrow, which doesn't even do hardly anything, you have a sword that, even when upgraded, does miserable damage, the combos are extremely limited and not all that exciting, and you move so slowly that any half-brained Urgal could catch up to you with no problem. In fact, all the enemies move really fast, until they get close to you, that is. However, your speed never increases.
Your allies, when and if you play long enough to meet them, are just about as useless as Eragon is, even when their
Oh, and Durza shouldn't be called a boss; he should be called a mildly infuriating pain in one's spine.
I'd go on, but I really don't want to keep talking about this game.
In that regard, we'll move on to something more interesting.
Next time, that is.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Narrow Scope: Metal Gear Solid 4
Bloody hard drive crashes out of the blue on me, now I have to upload every program that wasn't infected again...
Anyhow, I'm back from a "break" (-down), and I have some new material for you guys. This time around, I'm going to antagonize Metal Gear Solid. Snake will undoubtedly kill my sorry hide for this. (Leigh? LEIGH?! LEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH!!!)
Anyhow. Where to start.
OH I KNOW! Let's start with the ridiculous story.
Because of some strange cloning thing, where the dominant genes of the late Solid Snake, a.k.a. Big Boss, were placed in a bunch of baby fetuses, along with the recessive genes, Big Boss now has a whole army of, basically, himself. This includes Snake and Liquid. And unless I misinterpreted the story up to then, Liquid's pissed that he got the uncool genes and wants to kill Snake, so he sends out his biological siblings to try and kill a guy who's doomed to age like sixty years in the next TEN years, and they all fail, so he decides to use REX to kill Snake, but then Grey Fox stops him (at the expense of his own life), and Snake defeats REX (I think), and Liquid and Snake have a big old end fight near a possibly dead Meryl. We never figured that out. But, sudden twist! Revolver Ocelot loses his hand and it somehow gets grafted onto Liquid's arm! Oh snap! Now it's Liquid Ocelot! How many times have I killed Liquid now? Why is he not dead? What's this bullhonkey about POWs and SOPs? Why is it that a cow mooing causes soldiers to have uberseizures and beat the ever-loving Christ out of each other? Why is Akiba not effected by this? What does Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have to do with seizures induced by cows? Where did Vamp come from? Why does Raiden bleed white? Whose side is Naomi freaking ON? Why is Otacon a tiny robotic video camera? Who the hell is Drebin? When did the B&B Brigade come back to life? What's with the distinct lack of the Sorrow and the Rage? Why is Meryl's squad called the Rat Patrol? Why am I playing this game? Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? What's going on?! GOD HELP ME!!!
So, in case you haven't noticed, NOTHING in this game makes sense. The only reason it seems like it does is because they give so much boring backtalk on the matter that if your brain hasn't leaked out your ears by the time the six-hour cutscene ends, then you certainly won't have been listening to the whole thing in order to figure out that they're pulling this stuff out of their arses. Unfortunately, I had the guts enough to try.
I didn't even make it through Act Two.
Oh, you're good, Hideo Kojima. You're real good.
Next up on the list of things to rail at: Facial camo. Hey, this face camo adds +5 to my stealth! I'm already wearing my stealth uniform, might as well just top myself off! WOAH, WHY THE CRAP ARE THEY ATTACKING ME?! Yes, folks, apparently face camo is an automatic Alert trigger in this game, despite the fact that it's SUPPOSED TO HIDE YOU. Wow. So turning into Liquid Ocelot's uniform is apparently okay, but don't you DARE put on his face, you'll die like a dog.
Unless I'm doing something terribly wrong with my face camo, this should NOT be happening.
I might as well just wear the BOX all the time, for all the good face camo does me.
Next: Why do they give you all sorts of guns if you only ever need the M4 Carbine? Seriously, on my second playthrough, I had the Railgun (you get that at the end of the game), the Solar Gun, the Patriot rifle (unlimited ammo, woot woot!), a bunch of sniper rifles, grenade launchers pistols, assault rifles, LMGs...
And you only ever need the M4 and the Mk. II tranquilizer pistol. Yet they are the weakest weapons. Why, you may ask, is this? Because the M4 has so much customization potential, and Mk. II's effects work slower than most guns, because it's not a killing gun. (But once you de-armor the B&B ladies, it works rather well in taking them out during their creepy slow walk.)
When you first get the M4, it has some pretty bad stats in every department. Well, no problem there, just work up enough money to get yourself a scope, silencer, grenade launcher, fore grip, better stock, maybe a laser sight, and you have yourself a modded doom cannon. Granted, how you customize it effects how instantly people notice you, so you'll have to take into effect that laser sights have a bad habit of being rather visible, and grenade launchers are not just a bigger barrel for your gun, they shoot EXPLOSIVES.
But I never needed to use a different gun in MGS4 when I got the M4. Ever.
Next up! Johnny Akiba.
I do hereby quote Snake: "How the hell'd you survive for ten years?"
Although, he does get a moment of glory in act three(?) where he has to perform CPR on Meryl. And he has a cool sounding name, so that makes up for the fact that he has... diarrhea issues. ("Commander! I can't hold it any longer!" *gratuitous fart sounds*)
Once more, Next! Gekkos.
Fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff-for the love of god, I hate these things with a passion.
Oh, and don't get me started on FROG soldiers. (lolfrog)
ZOMG! And! Otacon! He's back! And the only different looking thing about him is his animation style. Ah well.
At least we get to see more SUNNY! YAYZ! (I liked Sunny the most out of the MGS4 characters, because at least she wasn't:
A) A mopey soldier prick with a chip on his shoulder {Raiden, Snake, Liquid}
B) A nerd {Otacon, Naomi}
C) Akiba {Akiba})
Throughout its flaws, though, the game is really good. I especially liked the soldier taking a potty break in a barrel. And then Snake using... the barrel... to... uh, to roll into... into bad guys... and then throw up from the spinning...
Okay, you know what? War... has changed, and I don't care how MGS4 makes it look, it just got all kinds of ridiculous.
Anyhow, I'm back from a "break" (-down), and I have some new material for you guys. This time around, I'm going to antagonize Metal Gear Solid. Snake will undoubtedly kill my sorry hide for this. (Leigh? LEIGH?! LEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH!!!)
Anyhow. Where to start.
OH I KNOW! Let's start with the ridiculous story.
Because of some strange cloning thing, where the dominant genes of the late Solid Snake, a.k.a. Big Boss, were placed in a bunch of baby fetuses, along with the recessive genes, Big Boss now has a whole army of, basically, himself. This includes Snake and Liquid. And unless I misinterpreted the story up to then, Liquid's pissed that he got the uncool genes and wants to kill Snake, so he sends out his biological siblings to try and kill a guy who's doomed to age like sixty years in the next TEN years, and they all fail, so he decides to use REX to kill Snake, but then Grey Fox stops him (at the expense of his own life), and Snake defeats REX (I think), and Liquid and Snake have a big old end fight near a possibly dead Meryl. We never figured that out. But, sudden twist! Revolver Ocelot loses his hand and it somehow gets grafted onto Liquid's arm! Oh snap! Now it's Liquid Ocelot! How many times have I killed Liquid now? Why is he not dead? What's this bullhonkey about POWs and SOPs? Why is it that a cow mooing causes soldiers to have uberseizures and beat the ever-loving Christ out of each other? Why is Akiba not effected by this? What does Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have to do with seizures induced by cows? Where did Vamp come from? Why does Raiden bleed white? Whose side is Naomi freaking ON? Why is Otacon a tiny robotic video camera? Who the hell is Drebin? When did the B&B Brigade come back to life? What's with the distinct lack of the Sorrow and the Rage? Why is Meryl's squad called the Rat Patrol? Why am I playing this game? Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? What's going on?! GOD HELP ME!!!
So, in case you haven't noticed, NOTHING in this game makes sense. The only reason it seems like it does is because they give so much boring backtalk on the matter that if your brain hasn't leaked out your ears by the time the six-hour cutscene ends, then you certainly won't have been listening to the whole thing in order to figure out that they're pulling this stuff out of their arses. Unfortunately, I had the guts enough to try.
I didn't even make it through Act Two.
Oh, you're good, Hideo Kojima. You're real good.
Next up on the list of things to rail at: Facial camo. Hey, this face camo adds +5 to my stealth! I'm already wearing my stealth uniform, might as well just top myself off! WOAH, WHY THE CRAP ARE THEY ATTACKING ME?! Yes, folks, apparently face camo is an automatic Alert trigger in this game, despite the fact that it's SUPPOSED TO HIDE YOU. Wow. So turning into Liquid Ocelot's uniform is apparently okay, but don't you DARE put on his face, you'll die like a dog.
Unless I'm doing something terribly wrong with my face camo, this should NOT be happening.
I might as well just wear the BOX all the time, for all the good face camo does me.
Next: Why do they give you all sorts of guns if you only ever need the M4 Carbine? Seriously, on my second playthrough, I had the Railgun (you get that at the end of the game), the Solar Gun, the Patriot rifle (unlimited ammo, woot woot!), a bunch of sniper rifles, grenade launchers pistols, assault rifles, LMGs...
And you only ever need the M4 and the Mk. II tranquilizer pistol. Yet they are the weakest weapons. Why, you may ask, is this? Because the M4 has so much customization potential, and Mk. II's effects work slower than most guns, because it's not a killing gun. (But once you de-armor the B&B ladies, it works rather well in taking them out during their creepy slow walk.)
When you first get the M4, it has some pretty bad stats in every department. Well, no problem there, just work up enough money to get yourself a scope, silencer, grenade launcher, fore grip, better stock, maybe a laser sight, and you have yourself a modded doom cannon. Granted, how you customize it effects how instantly people notice you, so you'll have to take into effect that laser sights have a bad habit of being rather visible, and grenade launchers are not just a bigger barrel for your gun, they shoot EXPLOSIVES.
But I never needed to use a different gun in MGS4 when I got the M4. Ever.
Next up! Johnny Akiba.
I do hereby quote Snake: "How the hell'd you survive for ten years?"
Although, he does get a moment of glory in act three(?) where he has to perform CPR on Meryl. And he has a cool sounding name, so that makes up for the fact that he has... diarrhea issues. ("Commander! I can't hold it any longer!" *gratuitous fart sounds*)
Once more, Next! Gekkos.
Fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff-for the love of god, I hate these things with a passion.
Oh, and don't get me started on FROG soldiers. (lolfrog)
ZOMG! And! Otacon! He's back! And the only different looking thing about him is his animation style. Ah well.
At least we get to see more SUNNY! YAYZ! (I liked Sunny the most out of the MGS4 characters, because at least she wasn't:
A) A mopey soldier prick with a chip on his shoulder {Raiden, Snake, Liquid}
B) A nerd {Otacon, Naomi}
C) Akiba {Akiba})
Throughout its flaws, though, the game is really good. I especially liked the soldier taking a potty break in a barrel. And then Snake using... the barrel... to... uh, to roll into... into bad guys... and then throw up from the spinning...
Okay, you know what? War... has changed, and I don't care how MGS4 makes it look, it just got all kinds of ridiculous.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Narrow Scope: Assassin's Creed review, with AC2 remarks
Old game, old review.
Or, rather, old game, slightly more recent review.
The last time I had anything to say about this game, it was all glory and praise at how amazing it was. Now that I go back and play it again, I can suddenly see where Assassin's Creed 2 had me hook, line and sinker.
And before anybody asks, this is not an uberbashing of a good game; rather, it's a more matured, even-headed review. And I say even-headed with the thought that my neck broke one of two ways when I first played this game, and it was towards my favorite shoulder, so that must have meant the game was good, right?
It is, it's just not amazing.
Here goes; hope to god Altair doesn't slay me whilst I sleep.
So, to start, let's just say that the whole Abstergo thing in this game was a complete pain in the (pardon my English) arse. I came here to kill stuff, not walk around in a mopey manner while you plan to take over and/or destroy the world behind my back. God forbid you actually use any other form of defense aside from cameras and auto-locked doors, that would be TOO OVERKILL.
Honestly, I could've jumped out the window and screwed over their entire operation if the game would have included that kind of mobility, but NOOOOOOOO.
Might I also add, I really hated Lucy in this game. Not because of how she acted, nor because of how they animated her (in game 2, she looks like she took a kick to the face and got fat lips from it), but because she was basically there as EYE CANDY. I've expressed my displeasure of women being used in this way before, and I feel nostalgic at having to do so again.
By the way, if Ezio didn't have to cut off his finger in game 2, why did SHE? If you play through to the end (notice the IF there, that's IF you make it through the Abstergo stuff), you get this little camera glitch (I think) where it shows off her obviously-joint-vacated ring finger stub. BIG GIVEAWAY, OH SHNAP.
WOAH, I LOVE THE CAPS BUTTON TONIGHT.
Anyhow, let's get to the actual FUN parts!
After the incredibly boring (and mostly-faceless){I say mostly-faceless because you're the only guy with a face in the whole thing} tutorial, you get to see more boring cutscenes of Altair killing a guy, then screwing up the mission. Sure, you can control him during this part, but you are not once told how to fight. Basically, the game says "Jump across these beams, climb this ladder, kill this guy, watch this cutscene, go down these ladders, look at Robert, press X."
And Altair fails it like I fail so many quick-time events. How sad. {No, really. That hurts my ego.}
So now I have to run all the way to the exit as if I'm playing Mirror's Edge. (I'm saving that for a later review, by the way.) And what do I get for it? A tutorial on barely being able to run up a wall, another tutorial for climbing another wall with convenient handholds (In fact, pretty much any building can be climbed), and then an almost beautiful view of Jerusalem from a hole in Solomon's Temple. That I don't get to see because the Animus boots me out.
It took me an hour to get to the part where I actually get to travel to new places. And unfortunately, since this isn't Assassin's Creed 2, where once you find a travel post in the city, you can just teleport to the city itself, I had to go by horseback.
Let's just say, the Kingdom is a very vast place. In fact, I'd classify it as its own city, except there's nothing to DO out there. Maybe get attacked by a few Templars here and there, but that's to be expected, Templars are jerks. Especially the ones who immediately alert to your presence and take forever to kill. (I expended all my throwing knives trying to kill one. They all hit. And he just kept running.) You'll know those guys by their oh-so-conveniently obvious helmets and uniforms. And they enjoy hanging out alone.
By the time I got to Damascus from Masayaf, I was so used to staring at a horse's butt that it was almost a sexual fetish growing in my gut. I said almost there, because the sheer fact that I was playing pretty princess from Masayaf to Damascus was enough to make just want to get to the next city for my next assassination.
The assassinations themselves aren't all that difficult; I'd say the most challenging one is the Robert de Sable fight, where first, you fight a phony flanked by a million archers, several Templar knights, and an tightly-packed graveyard. Then you go to Arsuf, which is currently under war (And the coolest place in Assassin's Creed), and you take on the real Robert de Sable, after taking down like, twenty Templar knights beforehand. Then the actual assassination is a matter of making him slip up. But aside from that one, every other assassination is pretty pathetic in terms of challenge. I mean, yeah, they were all different, but it was pretty simple to sneak onto Sibrand's ship in Acre and take him out when he isn't looking, as paranoid as he is, and it's not in the slightest way difficult to sneak up on Tamir while he's ranting about the poor quality of the goods he's black marketing from Jerusalem.
By the way, these city names are lol. I've heard of all of them, save for Masayaf and Arsuf, and I find it ironic that I get to kill people while the war between King Richard the Lionheart and Sala Al Din is raging on in the background. That's a pretty important event you're shafting there, Assassin's Creed, thank god Altair got caught up in at least SOME of it before the end of the game. What also sucks is that the cities are so limited in their travel. In Assassin's Creed 2, instead of only allowing travel in one rather small section of the area, the whole city eventually unlocks as the game progresses. Well, save for the southern half of Florence, but I guess nothing really happened there in Ezio's life. Unlike Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed simply says "You're only allowed to go here because that's where your target is. We'll only open up more once you kill all the people here." And then they throw up a big ol' wall that blocks you off while civilians are all like, "Noobs don't know 'bout my wall-crossing skillz."
In Assasin's Creed 2, you can walk through that barrier - at the cost of your own life.
Now, I mentioned Templars, yes? In Assassin's Creed, just looking at them wrong sends them on a tangent of blood lust. God help you if you come across a red-helmet Templar, he spawns if you get within fifty feet of him, you don't even have to be doing anything wrong for him to jump at you. What's worse is that he usually has friends that spawn when he runs near them, so you never just fight the lone guy unless you get really lucky. And the last assassination outside of Masayaf has you pitted against like, twenty of these guys, and THEN Robert de Sable.
Not to mention that you don't even get to enjoy the fact that you killed him, since he immediately says while dying, "Oh, by the way, your boss is a jerk and put us up to this so he could have {Artifact of power here} to himself."
Great. So now I get to kill the equivalent of what Liquid Snake is to Solid Snake: An arse with a lot of power on his hands.
And it's not like you just fight the one guy; oh no, that would be too simple. No, instead, Al Mualim decides to possess the city so that all the guards attack you when you get near what is considered Capital Hill in Assassin's Creed (Raffik and some friendly assassins save you, though - not like you need it, if you're good with counter kill, but...), and then he makes it so that all the residents of the city block your path to the Assassin Temple, and I usually just go on a killing spree here, since I don't get desynchronized for murdering people that are too brainwashed to care, and then when you get out to the final boss fight, he revives everybody you've killed so far and pits them against you, so now you have the added benefit of KILLING THEM AGAIN, and this time, they go down like non-commanding-status guards of AC2. Hilariously enough, I killed them in the same order as I did during the actual assassinations.
Then? Then you fight seven (yes, seven) Al Mualims, who aren't very hard to beat, despite his claims that he's dropped thousands of men with his sword. It's just a matter of getting at the actual Al Mualim and knocking him out, which takes out the clones with him.
And here's the really fun part: At the last bit, he decides to take away all of your health and make it so that you have to track him down (The garden is HUGE, guys) and knock him around to regain your health. Usually after like, two hits, he does it again. By the third time he does that, it's usually his last, because he can barely stand up straight.
You know what real satisfaction feels like?
Kill Al Mualim, that's answer enough to that question.
The whole story of the game is pretty wonky by itself. If not for the sci-fi factor, I'd think somebody made a really bad rip-off of historical events and tried to pass it off as proven facts. And the many recurring themes in Assassin's Creed - The hidden blade, the Pieces of Eden, eagles, jumping off of tall buildings into haystacks (and surviving!), fights with guards where, instead of actually fighting like humans, they stand around and take turns dying, then wonder how you killed that last guy - definitely can grind on people's nerves after a while. I thought I was here to kill people, why, all of a sudden, am I solving a puzzle about Marie Antoinette just so I can see that a small bulge in her dress was actually where she was hiding a Piece of Eden?
And possibly my favorite flaw of the game - walking up the stairs. Yeah, that's realistic stair-climbing. For sure.
Overall, I'd give this game a deserving 8/10. Amazing graphics, awesome attention to detail, superb physics, but the story, combat, and recurring themes that pop up every twenty seconds are kind of a downer. That, and Altair's obviously American voice actor.
Or, rather, old game, slightly more recent review.
The last time I had anything to say about this game, it was all glory and praise at how amazing it was. Now that I go back and play it again, I can suddenly see where Assassin's Creed 2 had me hook, line and sinker.
And before anybody asks, this is not an uberbashing of a good game; rather, it's a more matured, even-headed review. And I say even-headed with the thought that my neck broke one of two ways when I first played this game, and it was towards my favorite shoulder, so that must have meant the game was good, right?
It is, it's just not amazing.
Here goes; hope to god Altair doesn't slay me whilst I sleep.
So, to start, let's just say that the whole Abstergo thing in this game was a complete pain in the (pardon my English) arse. I came here to kill stuff, not walk around in a mopey manner while you plan to take over and/or destroy the world behind my back. God forbid you actually use any other form of defense aside from cameras and auto-locked doors, that would be TOO OVERKILL.
Honestly, I could've jumped out the window and screwed over their entire operation if the game would have included that kind of mobility, but NOOOOOOOO.
Might I also add, I really hated Lucy in this game. Not because of how she acted, nor because of how they animated her (in game 2, she looks like she took a kick to the face and got fat lips from it), but because she was basically there as EYE CANDY. I've expressed my displeasure of women being used in this way before, and I feel nostalgic at having to do so again.
By the way, if Ezio didn't have to cut off his finger in game 2, why did SHE? If you play through to the end (notice the IF there, that's IF you make it through the Abstergo stuff), you get this little camera glitch (I think) where it shows off her obviously-joint-vacated ring finger stub. BIG GIVEAWAY, OH SHNAP.
WOAH, I LOVE THE CAPS BUTTON TONIGHT.
Anyhow, let's get to the actual FUN parts!
After the incredibly boring (and mostly-faceless){I say mostly-faceless because you're the only guy with a face in the whole thing} tutorial, you get to see more boring cutscenes of Altair killing a guy, then screwing up the mission. Sure, you can control him during this part, but you are not once told how to fight. Basically, the game says "Jump across these beams, climb this ladder, kill this guy, watch this cutscene, go down these ladders, look at Robert, press X."
And Altair fails it like I fail so many quick-time events. How sad. {No, really. That hurts my ego.}
So now I have to run all the way to the exit as if I'm playing Mirror's Edge. (I'm saving that for a later review, by the way.) And what do I get for it? A tutorial on barely being able to run up a wall, another tutorial for climbing another wall with convenient handholds (In fact, pretty much any building can be climbed), and then an almost beautiful view of Jerusalem from a hole in Solomon's Temple. That I don't get to see because the Animus boots me out.
It took me an hour to get to the part where I actually get to travel to new places. And unfortunately, since this isn't Assassin's Creed 2, where once you find a travel post in the city, you can just teleport to the city itself, I had to go by horseback.
Let's just say, the Kingdom is a very vast place. In fact, I'd classify it as its own city, except there's nothing to DO out there. Maybe get attacked by a few Templars here and there, but that's to be expected, Templars are jerks. Especially the ones who immediately alert to your presence and take forever to kill. (I expended all my throwing knives trying to kill one. They all hit. And he just kept running.) You'll know those guys by their oh-so-conveniently obvious helmets and uniforms. And they enjoy hanging out alone.
By the time I got to Damascus from Masayaf, I was so used to staring at a horse's butt that it was almost a sexual fetish growing in my gut. I said almost there, because the sheer fact that I was playing pretty princess from Masayaf to Damascus was enough to make just want to get to the next city for my next assassination.
The assassinations themselves aren't all that difficult; I'd say the most challenging one is the Robert de Sable fight, where first, you fight a phony flanked by a million archers, several Templar knights, and an tightly-packed graveyard. Then you go to Arsuf, which is currently under war (And the coolest place in Assassin's Creed), and you take on the real Robert de Sable, after taking down like, twenty Templar knights beforehand. Then the actual assassination is a matter of making him slip up. But aside from that one, every other assassination is pretty pathetic in terms of challenge. I mean, yeah, they were all different, but it was pretty simple to sneak onto Sibrand's ship in Acre and take him out when he isn't looking, as paranoid as he is, and it's not in the slightest way difficult to sneak up on Tamir while he's ranting about the poor quality of the goods he's black marketing from Jerusalem.
By the way, these city names are lol. I've heard of all of them, save for Masayaf and Arsuf, and I find it ironic that I get to kill people while the war between King Richard the Lionheart and Sala Al Din is raging on in the background. That's a pretty important event you're shafting there, Assassin's Creed, thank god Altair got caught up in at least SOME of it before the end of the game. What also sucks is that the cities are so limited in their travel. In Assassin's Creed 2, instead of only allowing travel in one rather small section of the area, the whole city eventually unlocks as the game progresses. Well, save for the southern half of Florence, but I guess nothing really happened there in Ezio's life. Unlike Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed simply says "You're only allowed to go here because that's where your target is. We'll only open up more once you kill all the people here." And then they throw up a big ol' wall that blocks you off while civilians are all like, "Noobs don't know 'bout my wall-crossing skillz."
In Assasin's Creed 2, you can walk through that barrier - at the cost of your own life.
Now, I mentioned Templars, yes? In Assassin's Creed, just looking at them wrong sends them on a tangent of blood lust. God help you if you come across a red-helmet Templar, he spawns if you get within fifty feet of him, you don't even have to be doing anything wrong for him to jump at you. What's worse is that he usually has friends that spawn when he runs near them, so you never just fight the lone guy unless you get really lucky. And the last assassination outside of Masayaf has you pitted against like, twenty of these guys, and THEN Robert de Sable.
Not to mention that you don't even get to enjoy the fact that you killed him, since he immediately says while dying, "Oh, by the way, your boss is a jerk and put us up to this so he could have {Artifact of power here} to himself."
Great. So now I get to kill the equivalent of what Liquid Snake is to Solid Snake: An arse with a lot of power on his hands.
And it's not like you just fight the one guy; oh no, that would be too simple. No, instead, Al Mualim decides to possess the city so that all the guards attack you when you get near what is considered Capital Hill in Assassin's Creed (Raffik and some friendly assassins save you, though - not like you need it, if you're good with counter kill, but...), and then he makes it so that all the residents of the city block your path to the Assassin Temple, and I usually just go on a killing spree here, since I don't get desynchronized for murdering people that are too brainwashed to care, and then when you get out to the final boss fight, he revives everybody you've killed so far and pits them against you, so now you have the added benefit of KILLING THEM AGAIN, and this time, they go down like non-commanding-status guards of AC2. Hilariously enough, I killed them in the same order as I did during the actual assassinations.
Then? Then you fight seven (yes, seven) Al Mualims, who aren't very hard to beat, despite his claims that he's dropped thousands of men with his sword. It's just a matter of getting at the actual Al Mualim and knocking him out, which takes out the clones with him.
And here's the really fun part: At the last bit, he decides to take away all of your health and make it so that you have to track him down (The garden is HUGE, guys) and knock him around to regain your health. Usually after like, two hits, he does it again. By the third time he does that, it's usually his last, because he can barely stand up straight.
You know what real satisfaction feels like?
Kill Al Mualim, that's answer enough to that question.
The whole story of the game is pretty wonky by itself. If not for the sci-fi factor, I'd think somebody made a really bad rip-off of historical events and tried to pass it off as proven facts. And the many recurring themes in Assassin's Creed - The hidden blade, the Pieces of Eden, eagles, jumping off of tall buildings into haystacks (and surviving!), fights with guards where, instead of actually fighting like humans, they stand around and take turns dying, then wonder how you killed that last guy - definitely can grind on people's nerves after a while. I thought I was here to kill people, why, all of a sudden, am I solving a puzzle about Marie Antoinette just so I can see that a small bulge in her dress was actually where she was hiding a Piece of Eden?
And possibly my favorite flaw of the game - walking up the stairs. Yeah, that's realistic stair-climbing. For sure.
Overall, I'd give this game a deserving 8/10. Amazing graphics, awesome attention to detail, superb physics, but the story, combat, and recurring themes that pop up every twenty seconds are kind of a downer. That, and Altair's obviously American voice actor.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Narrow Scope: Team Fortess 2 gabbering
I was playing Team Fortress 2 last night with my mates (That would be every name thus far I've mentioned playing video games with), and I compiled a list of don'ts when playing in our group.
That's provided you even manage to join our group.
Anyhow, here goes!
1. Don't ever play Heavy; you will be hunted down every single time.
2. Don't ever play as Spy with the Dead Ringer; nobody will believe that you actually died when they hear the watch deactivate. And somebody has a bad habit of finding you before you backstab them.
3. Jarate fights. Engage in them.
4. Don't, for the love of god, come in acting like a total noob and complaining when you don't get your way.
5. RED team will likely kill you stupid if you change to BLU team.
6. Shoot the Medic first.
7. I don't care if you like drinking Bonk!, it's BAD FOR YOU.
8. Crit-a-cola isn't any better.
9. It's pronounced DAH-LUH-KOS, not DUH-LA-KOS.
10. "You disguised yourself as me? Aw, that's cute." - Shamus
11. "Psst! Spy boy! Did you notice that your watch didn't work? STOP USING IT." - Greg
12. "Lern2Ambassador, plzkthnxbai." - Jack
13. "Backburner sucks, lern2Axtinguish" - Jack again
14. "Scouts versus Soldiers is a bad match up; sure, Scouts can run fast, but why would they give Soldiers the rocket launchers and Scouts the shotguns, hm?" - Minx
15. "..." - Me. So don't bother trying to get me to say much in a match.
16. Engineers are only as good as their inventions. If you can't get a turret or dispenser past level 1, you should probably switch classes.
17. Likewise, Snipers are only as good as their shots. If you can't land a charged shot off the broad side of a Heavy's head... well... I would suggest choosing a more close-up combat-oriented class.
18. I don't care how Natasha works; Sasha works better.
19. "I will gut you like a Cornish game hen" does not a threatening statement make.
20. Why in the hell would you ever decide to use the Sandvich as a taunt?
21. Your gun shoots medicine. My gun shoots needles. I think your gun wins here.
22. Conversely: My gun weighs 120 kilograms and shoots 10,000 $200 custom bullets per minute, and costs $400,000 to fire for twelve seconds. Your gun holds six rounds and isn't really all that good in combat. I think I win here, Spy boy.
23. Headshots do not an instant kill achieve.
24. Likewise, critical shots do not a special occasion make.
25. Talking like this does not a smart individual make you.
26. (Though I wish it did.)
27. At this stage, I've run out of ideas for funny stuff, and
28. I'm just trying to fill my
29. "Let's make the scroll bar as small as possible! :D"
30. Quota, so why not just
31. Cut off at thirty-two, hm?
32. Okay, we're done.
That's provided you even manage to join our group.
Anyhow, here goes!
1. Don't ever play Heavy; you will be hunted down every single time.
2. Don't ever play as Spy with the Dead Ringer; nobody will believe that you actually died when they hear the watch deactivate. And somebody has a bad habit of finding you before you backstab them.
3. Jarate fights. Engage in them.
4. Don't, for the love of god, come in acting like a total noob and complaining when you don't get your way.
5. RED team will likely kill you stupid if you change to BLU team.
6. Shoot the Medic first.
7. I don't care if you like drinking Bonk!, it's BAD FOR YOU.
8. Crit-a-cola isn't any better.
9. It's pronounced DAH-LUH-KOS, not DUH-LA-KOS.
10. "You disguised yourself as me? Aw, that's cute." - Shamus
11. "Psst! Spy boy! Did you notice that your watch didn't work? STOP USING IT." - Greg
12. "Lern2Ambassador, plzkthnxbai." - Jack
13. "Backburner sucks, lern2Axtinguish" - Jack again
14. "Scouts versus Soldiers is a bad match up; sure, Scouts can run fast, but why would they give Soldiers the rocket launchers and Scouts the shotguns, hm?" - Minx
15. "..." - Me. So don't bother trying to get me to say much in a match.
16. Engineers are only as good as their inventions. If you can't get a turret or dispenser past level 1, you should probably switch classes.
17. Likewise, Snipers are only as good as their shots. If you can't land a charged shot off the broad side of a Heavy's head... well... I would suggest choosing a more close-up combat-oriented class.
18. I don't care how Natasha works; Sasha works better.
19. "I will gut you like a Cornish game hen" does not a threatening statement make.
20. Why in the hell would you ever decide to use the Sandvich as a taunt?
21. Your gun shoots medicine. My gun shoots needles. I think your gun wins here.
22. Conversely: My gun weighs 120 kilograms and shoots 10,000 $200 custom bullets per minute, and costs $400,000 to fire for twelve seconds. Your gun holds six rounds and isn't really all that good in combat. I think I win here, Spy boy.
23. Headshots do not an instant kill achieve.
24. Likewise, critical shots do not a special occasion make.
25. Talking like this does not a smart individual make you.
26. (Though I wish it did.)
27. At this stage, I've run out of ideas for funny stuff, and
28. I'm just trying to fill my
29. "Let's make the scroll bar as small as possible! :D"
30. Quota, so why not just
31. Cut off at thirty-two, hm?
32. Okay, we're done.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Narrow Scope: Indigo Prophecy
Despite having played Indigo Prophecy at least fifty-six times now (I have to in order to be able to complete my checklist of challenges), I decided to play it again in order to review it here.
Good grief, I forgot how tedious it is to have to choose the correct answer in order to not fail the game.
Basically, this game is the original Heavy Rain, but the difference is that it was made quite a while before Heavy Rain and had a much more fantasy-oriented story, while its ancestor had a more real-life-oriented story.
From the start, you play as a guy named Lucas Kane who has just committed some serious crime known as Muhr'Der in ancient cults, and now has to hide the unfortunate victim of this forbidden sacrifice. So what do I do?
Hide him in a bathroom stall.
I could've hidden him in a trashcan and had about the same effect, given how badly Lucas "cleans up the mess" he made afterwards.
Just for giggles, I went and spoke to the only cop in the building - the only guy who should have caught on to Lucas' noticeably uncontrollable rambling.
Normal cops wouldn't immediately chalk up rambling as "a guy having a bad night". In fact, most of the cops in my area would immediately think "something's gone down" and go to investigate the scene. Unfortunately, I guess Manhattan cops in Indigo Prophecy aren't too bright. (Or well trained. But, hey, the only two cops you ever play as are also pretty bad investigators, so I guess that should say something as a whole about what Indigo Prophecy thinks about New York.)
I tried to leave, forgot to pay the bill, DOOOOOOWWWWN goes Lucas' emotional status. That stuff is hard to keep up, you know?
So I leave the restaurant. Immediately, the cop (Martin) has to go to the bathroom. And who woulda' thunk it that a trail of red going into the only drain in the bathroom would tip him off that there's a dead body in the middle stall?
I love how casual he looks because nobody in this game can change facial expressions. Even Lucas always looks sleepy.
I should also add that out of all the cops that arrive on scene henceforth, only once is there ever more than one emergency vehicle on sight. Which is rather stupid, since usually the ambulance AND police get called to the scene, especially if it's a murder.
But, hey. This game was made in like, what, 2001? Somewhere thereabouts? There's obviously a few things wrong in the time frame from then to now.
Anyhow, so I get to play as Carla and Tyler now, as they attempt to investigate the murder scene. Ironically, it takes them the whole game to finally figure out that it was Lucas.
I could have done it as soon as I entered the room and got a DNA sample on the blood. Which, by the way, they never did. I mean, they acted like they needed one, but it never came in. Ever.
Instead, a bunch of misplaced pieces of evidence were what gave Lucas away.
I suppose that works just as well, but I still don't accept it.
That aside, as much as I like playing as Carla (there is a... certain part... that especially intrigues some players, but I'm not that kind of person, so I never really noticed it until somebody physically pointed out that she was walking around in her underwear){Fun fact: It was Shamus}, I decided to go Tyler for this bit. Mainly because he was the only playable black character in the game, and I would do no justice to him just to leave him standing in the background, you know? I mean, aside from Cole Train (you Gears of War fans would know who I'm talking about), and possibly Barret (same goes for you, Final Fantasy fans), when is the last time you were ever given the option to play as a character who wasn't a white male or Asian female?
No, wait, don't answer that, I feel I may have just offended some people...
Moving on, I get back to the apartment as Lucas, find myself having terrible dreams about his murder-fest, and then I make the mistake of watching T.V. when I get control of him again. I have to say... that was an interesting cutscene. I've never seen a creepy red stickman murder before.
{Shamus' note: It wasn't actually a red stick man murder; he just says it is because he can't think of a different description.}
And Lucas' attempts at cleaning up a crime scene IN HIS ROOM are even worse than in a bathroom. Oh, let's take the dirty shirt and toss it in the laundry, nobody's going to notice that all your shirts from then on are a mysterious shade of PINK.
And the best excuse for the cops when they search the room and go towards my room that I can give to avert them elsewhere (I forgot to get the sheet) is "My 'partner' is sleeping". Oh, you're FUNNY, Lucas. Everybody who's played this game knows you broke up with your old girlfriend years ag-
{And that's how my story ends. I was shot and killed by a sniper who happened to be a fan of the game I was reviewing, and yet somehow, despite being dead, I can still type all this out on my keyboard. I'll never know what happened that cold night in January in the toilet of an East End restaurant; I suppose chances are low that I'll be able to respawn and find out. Because in the eyes of the world, I'm just a dork reviewing a video game on his blog.}
Ha! Fooled you!
By the way, that little bit at the end there is what happens when you fail. As anybody. Well, Lucas says something mopey to the effect of "But now, it doesn't matter; because in the eyes of the world, I'm just a murderer." Unless he ends up in the insane asylum (haven't ever gotten that ending), where he kinda' sounds amused at his predicament, and ends it with "Because to the rest of the world, I'm just a poor soul" or something. I never really listened to the full ending because the video of it I saw cut it of halfway through.
I'll probably have more to whine about later, but I think I heard my pear pie go off (no, there were no bombs included). brb, lol.
Good grief, I forgot how tedious it is to have to choose the correct answer in order to not fail the game.
Basically, this game is the original Heavy Rain, but the difference is that it was made quite a while before Heavy Rain and had a much more fantasy-oriented story, while its ancestor had a more real-life-oriented story.
From the start, you play as a guy named Lucas Kane who has just committed some serious crime known as Muhr'Der in ancient cults, and now has to hide the unfortunate victim of this forbidden sacrifice. So what do I do?
Hide him in a bathroom stall.
I could've hidden him in a trashcan and had about the same effect, given how badly Lucas "cleans up the mess" he made afterwards.
Just for giggles, I went and spoke to the only cop in the building - the only guy who should have caught on to Lucas' noticeably uncontrollable rambling.
Normal cops wouldn't immediately chalk up rambling as "a guy having a bad night". In fact, most of the cops in my area would immediately think "something's gone down" and go to investigate the scene. Unfortunately, I guess Manhattan cops in Indigo Prophecy aren't too bright. (Or well trained. But, hey, the only two cops you ever play as are also pretty bad investigators, so I guess that should say something as a whole about what Indigo Prophecy thinks about New York.)
I tried to leave, forgot to pay the bill, DOOOOOOWWWWN goes Lucas' emotional status. That stuff is hard to keep up, you know?
So I leave the restaurant. Immediately, the cop (Martin) has to go to the bathroom. And who woulda' thunk it that a trail of red going into the only drain in the bathroom would tip him off that there's a dead body in the middle stall?
I love how casual he looks because nobody in this game can change facial expressions. Even Lucas always looks sleepy.
I should also add that out of all the cops that arrive on scene henceforth, only once is there ever more than one emergency vehicle on sight. Which is rather stupid, since usually the ambulance AND police get called to the scene, especially if it's a murder.
But, hey. This game was made in like, what, 2001? Somewhere thereabouts? There's obviously a few things wrong in the time frame from then to now.
Anyhow, so I get to play as Carla and Tyler now, as they attempt to investigate the murder scene. Ironically, it takes them the whole game to finally figure out that it was Lucas.
I could have done it as soon as I entered the room and got a DNA sample on the blood. Which, by the way, they never did. I mean, they acted like they needed one, but it never came in. Ever.
Instead, a bunch of misplaced pieces of evidence were what gave Lucas away.
I suppose that works just as well, but I still don't accept it.
That aside, as much as I like playing as Carla (there is a... certain part... that especially intrigues some players, but I'm not that kind of person, so I never really noticed it until somebody physically pointed out that she was walking around in her underwear){Fun fact: It was Shamus}, I decided to go Tyler for this bit. Mainly because he was the only playable black character in the game, and I would do no justice to him just to leave him standing in the background, you know? I mean, aside from Cole Train (you Gears of War fans would know who I'm talking about), and possibly Barret (same goes for you, Final Fantasy fans), when is the last time you were ever given the option to play as a character who wasn't a white male or Asian female?
No, wait, don't answer that, I feel I may have just offended some people...
Moving on, I get back to the apartment as Lucas, find myself having terrible dreams about his murder-fest, and then I make the mistake of watching T.V. when I get control of him again. I have to say... that was an interesting cutscene. I've never seen a creepy red stickman murder before.
{Shamus' note: It wasn't actually a red stick man murder; he just says it is because he can't think of a different description.}
And Lucas' attempts at cleaning up a crime scene IN HIS ROOM are even worse than in a bathroom. Oh, let's take the dirty shirt and toss it in the laundry, nobody's going to notice that all your shirts from then on are a mysterious shade of PINK.
And the best excuse for the cops when they search the room and go towards my room that I can give to avert them elsewhere (I forgot to get the sheet) is "My 'partner' is sleeping". Oh, you're FUNNY, Lucas. Everybody who's played this game knows you broke up with your old girlfriend years ag-
{And that's how my story ends. I was shot and killed by a sniper who happened to be a fan of the game I was reviewing, and yet somehow, despite being dead, I can still type all this out on my keyboard. I'll never know what happened that cold night in January in the toilet of an East End restaurant; I suppose chances are low that I'll be able to respawn and find out. Because in the eyes of the world, I'm just a dork reviewing a video game on his blog.}
Ha! Fooled you!
By the way, that little bit at the end there is what happens when you fail. As anybody. Well, Lucas says something mopey to the effect of "But now, it doesn't matter; because in the eyes of the world, I'm just a murderer." Unless he ends up in the insane asylum (haven't ever gotten that ending), where he kinda' sounds amused at his predicament, and ends it with "Because to the rest of the world, I'm just a poor soul" or something. I never really listened to the full ending because the video of it I saw cut it of halfway through.
I'll probably have more to whine about later, but I think I heard my pear pie go off (no, there were no bombs included). brb, lol.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Narrow Scope: Chronicles of a Noob Paladin
Day 1, Hour 1: Oh boy! Starting off a new adventure today! Going to be awesome, I can tell!
Hour 2: Still haven't received first mission; decided to practice on local wildlife. Why are rats so hard to kill when I have a giant hammer?
Hour 3: Level 5 now, still no new mission. Maybe I'm supposed to talk to the guy...?
Hour 3, minute 2: Yep.
Hour 4: Going out to kill me some... Wait, what the Light's a Kobold?
Hour 5: Level 10 now. I really think I need some new gear. This hammer just isn't doing it for me.
Hour 6: Woot! I got money for killing stuff! And some kickin' new boots!
Hour 7: GAH! Somebody threw a grenade! Now I have a Mr. T mask for some reason! What the Light is going on?!
Hour 8: Oh, so you're the guy responsible for that grenade!
Hour 9: Note to self: Check level before fighting. Should have noticed the bright-red Level 80 next to username...
Hour 10: Finally out of noob zone. Going to Goldshire. Seems like a nice place.
Hour 11: What the Light did I get myself into? Goldshire's a Lighting noob-whore zone.
Hour 12: Checked into inn. Bed smells like bad sex on a hot evening. Why in God's name is there a blood stain on my pillow? What the Holy Light was going on in this room?!
Hour 13: Should really stop using Light as an insult stand-in. Really hard to think up good insults due to language restrictions. Why can't Paladins say fu-
Hour 14: Said evening prayers. Forgot to pack jammies, so I guess I'm sleeping in my armor tonight.
Hour 15: Son of an Angel, the guys next door are loud.
Hour 16: <No entry available>
Hour 17: <No entry available>
Hour 18: I really wish those guys next door would QUIET THE FRICK DOWN.
Hour 19: <No entry available>
Hour 20: GOD DAMN IT, QUIET DOWN OVER THERE!
Hour 21: Set fire to Goldshire. Moving on to Stormwind. Maybe a bigger city will be better?
Hour 22: Made it to Stormwind. Place is huge; how in the name of the Light do you read the map here?
Hour 23: No, no, no! This isn't the Paladin training zone! It's full of dwarves and smoke and stuff!
Hour 24: Day 2 commence!
Hour 2: Still haven't received first mission; decided to practice on local wildlife. Why are rats so hard to kill when I have a giant hammer?
Hour 3: Level 5 now, still no new mission. Maybe I'm supposed to talk to the guy...?
Hour 3, minute 2: Yep.
Hour 4: Going out to kill me some... Wait, what the Light's a Kobold?
Hour 5: Level 10 now. I really think I need some new gear. This hammer just isn't doing it for me.
Hour 6: Woot! I got money for killing stuff! And some kickin' new boots!
Hour 7: GAH! Somebody threw a grenade! Now I have a Mr. T mask for some reason! What the Light is going on?!
Hour 8: Oh, so you're the guy responsible for that grenade!
Hour 9: Note to self: Check level before fighting. Should have noticed the bright-red Level 80 next to username...
Hour 10: Finally out of noob zone. Going to Goldshire. Seems like a nice place.
Hour 11: What the Light did I get myself into? Goldshire's a Lighting noob-whore zone.
Hour 12: Checked into inn. Bed smells like bad sex on a hot evening. Why in God's name is there a blood stain on my pillow? What the Holy Light was going on in this room?!
Hour 13: Should really stop using Light as an insult stand-in. Really hard to think up good insults due to language restrictions. Why can't Paladins say fu-
Hour 14: Said evening prayers. Forgot to pack jammies, so I guess I'm sleeping in my armor tonight.
Hour 15: Son of an Angel, the guys next door are loud.
Hour 16: <No entry available>
Hour 17: <No entry available>
Hour 18: I really wish those guys next door would QUIET THE FRICK DOWN.
Hour 19: <No entry available>
Hour 20: GOD DAMN IT, QUIET DOWN OVER THERE!
Hour 21: Set fire to Goldshire. Moving on to Stormwind. Maybe a bigger city will be better?
Hour 22: Made it to Stormwind. Place is huge; how in the name of the Light do you read the map here?
Hour 23: No, no, no! This isn't the Paladin training zone! It's full of dwarves and smoke and stuff!
Hour 24: Day 2 commence!
Narrow Scope: Left 4 Dead 2
AH MAH GAWD.
IT'S HERE.
IT'S TOTALLY HERE.
IT'S TOTALLY TOTALLY HE-
*sniped*
Sorry about that, lads. The few times I let Greg out of my sight usually end in tears because he likes messing in my things.
So.
Left 4 Dead 2.
Go ahead and guess which game this is a sequel to. And no, it's not Duke Nukem Forever. Sorry.
As the title implies, this is installment number two of what I believe will turn into a trilogy if my guesses are correct. It is just too easy to make spin-offs of this kind of game. I mean - four people with guns, killing zombies and escaping in the last vehicle to a happy ending in the entire campaign? Who hasn't made a spin-off of that already?
Movie titles are the worst offenders. 28 Days Later comes to mind immediately. Let's see here, you have two men and two women fighting for their survival with assistance from the military who later turn out to be corrupt, and twenty-eight days later, they suddenly get saved by one of the few remaining survivors? Sounds pretty standard for zombie films, don't you think?
Well, Left 4 Dead is just one of those games that can have spin offs made a thousand times and still be good.
Thus: L4D2.
Instead of four normal city-goers, you now play four down-south folks. And, sticking with the Only Female for the Only Guy Player theme, I got slammed with Rochelle. But, this time, I wasn't the only guy player.
It was me, Shamus, Minx, and Nicole.
If you were looking for usernames, that would be LeighAlura, GetAwayFromMeGold, ManateeMinx, and NotNicoleRichie.
So, we start out like what happened in the first game: Everybody gets a Christ-load of ammo for their free new guns, I get a Molotov and chuck it at Shamus and light him on fire ("Sprecken ze stop throwing Molotovs at me?!"), and this time I don't trigger the Witch (o yai!).
Nope.
This time, I nabbed a new terror from the 'byss.
Meet the Jockey: the Hunter from down south. He doesn't look quite as cool, but still a jerk nonetheless. They carry most of the characteristics from the Hunter, the difference being that they can't jump quite as far and look a lot less cool, and instead of pinning you, you just kind of stumble around a bit until you die, but all the same, I hate them.
So I get hit by one, and while Shamus is "saving" me (with his uzi in my face), a Spitter - also known as a Lady Boomer - came and, as the title says, spit a glob of acid on Nicole, and the damage kept increasing because standing in the spit pool stacks damage, And before I even had time to think, everybody was DEAD because a Charger (redneck Tank) came out of nowhere and pounded the remaining butts into the lake nearby.
We made it less further than the first game.
I laughed so hard that the floor shook because I like pounding my fist into the ground when I laugh. Minx thought there was an earthquake happening, and Shamus thought a stampede was after his pot o' gold.
Shut up, Shamus.
IT'S HERE.
IT'S TOTALLY HERE.
IT'S TOTALLY TOTALLY HE-
*sniped*
Sorry about that, lads. The few times I let Greg out of my sight usually end in tears because he likes messing in my things.
So.
Left 4 Dead 2.
Go ahead and guess which game this is a sequel to. And no, it's not Duke Nukem Forever. Sorry.
As the title implies, this is installment number two of what I believe will turn into a trilogy if my guesses are correct. It is just too easy to make spin-offs of this kind of game. I mean - four people with guns, killing zombies and escaping in the last vehicle to a happy ending in the entire campaign? Who hasn't made a spin-off of that already?
Movie titles are the worst offenders. 28 Days Later comes to mind immediately. Let's see here, you have two men and two women fighting for their survival with assistance from the military who later turn out to be corrupt, and twenty-eight days later, they suddenly get saved by one of the few remaining survivors? Sounds pretty standard for zombie films, don't you think?
Well, Left 4 Dead is just one of those games that can have spin offs made a thousand times and still be good.
Thus: L4D2.
Instead of four normal city-goers, you now play four down-south folks. And, sticking with the Only Female for the Only Guy Player theme, I got slammed with Rochelle. But, this time, I wasn't the only guy player.
It was me, Shamus, Minx, and Nicole.
If you were looking for usernames, that would be LeighAlura, GetAwayFromMeGold, ManateeMinx, and NotNicoleRichie.
So, we start out like what happened in the first game: Everybody gets a Christ-load of ammo for their free new guns, I get a Molotov and chuck it at Shamus and light him on fire ("Sprecken ze stop throwing Molotovs at me?!"), and this time I don't trigger the Witch (o yai!).
Nope.
This time, I nabbed a new terror from the 'byss.
Meet the Jockey: the Hunter from down south. He doesn't look quite as cool, but still a jerk nonetheless. They carry most of the characteristics from the Hunter, the difference being that they can't jump quite as far and look a lot less cool, and instead of pinning you, you just kind of stumble around a bit until you die, but all the same, I hate them.
So I get hit by one, and while Shamus is "saving" me (with his uzi in my face), a Spitter - also known as a Lady Boomer - came and, as the title says, spit a glob of acid on Nicole, and the damage kept increasing because standing in the spit pool stacks damage, And before I even had time to think, everybody was DEAD because a Charger (redneck Tank) came out of nowhere and pounded the remaining butts into the lake nearby.
We made it less further than the first game.
I laughed so hard that the floor shook because I like pounding my fist into the ground when I laugh. Minx thought there was an earthquake happening, and Shamus thought a stampede was after his pot o' gold.
Shut up, Shamus.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Narrow Scope: Left 4 Dead series
It may seem a little soon for me to already be posting a new entry to this, but since I'm just starting to play Indigo Prophecy (a.k.a. Fahrenheit) again, I might as well review a game that I've played previously.
So, give a warm welcome to Left 4 Dead.
As the game's name implies, there's four of you. Anybody else smell multiplayer potential?
In the first game, you fight zombies in order to get out of a city. You do this four times. Maybe more if you downloaded modified maps to play in. For the record, I got the Silent Hill map, and played it with my three other mates - Minx, Julie, and Nicole, since the only MALE mates I have are usually too busy doing other things (i.e., Shamus is usually railing at a sucky game, Jack is usually poking fun at all the shortcomings of popular culture...) to bother with group video games.
So me and Minx (and Julie and Nicole) decided to play Left 4 Dead one bright, sunny day in April, about two days after my birthday. We thought a good zombie game would sit well with the left-over cake and ice cream, because apparently seeing half-rotted oozing humans explode is a good idea after just eating junk food (trust me, lads, I don't get it either), and the fact that we get free guns was also nice at the time. A Christ-load of ammo also tickled our fancies.
Too bad nobody told us there were a million zombies, and thirty percent of them could kill us really easily.
Yeah, at the time, nobody really knew that a "tank" did not refer to the giant, slow-moving vehicle of explosive destruction, nor that "witches" were not the ugly old crows with green skin in pointy black hats, and "hunters" were not friendly Paul Bunyan-esque people with free rifles on hand.
We sure as anything found out, though.
And it was a painfully well-learned lesson.
Of course, I was made to be the only girl of the group. Role reversal? Oh, hardly. Then they gave me two pistols and a sniper rifle.
Life is good.
Then I got a Molotov and a health kit and some quick-health pills.
Life is really good.
Everybody else had M16s and shotguns. Suckers!
So we go out of the safe room, and not even three seconds out of the starting gate, we're shooting zombies. Eventually, we got bored with just shooting zombies, so we decided to fool around. I did this funny little thing where I asked a random team member if they wanted my Molotov, and they said sure, so I threw it at them.
The joke was supposed to be that since their characters can't catch flying bombs, they would light on fire and give me a reason to be aggravated that they didn't catch it.
But I guess the Witch didn't think that was funny.
And then I died. Funny how sniper rifles are terrible at close range, huh?
So, after reviving somewhere and being saved by my companions (I actually don't remember if I was saved or if I just spawned next to them), we decided to not do that again. Unfortunately, we had little time to decide much else, because a Hunter jumped Minx and began tearing her apart, so we had to save her. But, I couldn't do that because a Smoker had tongue-raped me and was slowly dragging my violated body to a wall and up to a roof somewhere. So, Julie had to save me, get the boomer bile-stricken Nicole to a place where the inevitable horde couldn't reach her, and revive Minx. We paid her double pills for single-handedly killing the horde.
Suddenly, Left 4 Dead stopped being all fun and games. I guess that's what we get for spawning a Witch with fire, hm?
We were only halfway through the next level when:
Suddenly, Tank.
I mistook him for King Kong without hair. And he mistook me for his next meal.
So, I ended up dying AGAIN, but I did manage to finally kill the jerk, despite only being able to use my pistols.
When we finally completed the campaign we were on (I think it was Dead Air), the end credits said "In Memory of LeighAlura", and Minx cried.
Shut up, Minx.
Final results of the first campaign:
Headshots:
LeighAlura (589)
ManateeMinx (345)
NotNicoleRichie (221)
JamiesGotTwinGuns (27)
Zombies Killed:
LeighAlura (896)
ManateeMinx (453)
JamiesGotTwinGuns (332)
NotNicoleRichie (321)
Times Healed:
LeighAlura (21)
ManateeMinx (13)
JamiesGotTwinGuns (10)
NotNicoleRichie (0)
Most Team Mates Healed:
JamiesGotTwinGuns (34)
NotNicoleRichie (10)
LeighAlura (0)
ManateeMinx (0)
The list goes on.
I figure about eight thousand zombies were harmed in the making of that video.
So, give a warm welcome to Left 4 Dead.
As the game's name implies, there's four of you. Anybody else smell multiplayer potential?
In the first game, you fight zombies in order to get out of a city. You do this four times. Maybe more if you downloaded modified maps to play in. For the record, I got the Silent Hill map, and played it with my three other mates - Minx, Julie, and Nicole, since the only MALE mates I have are usually too busy doing other things (i.e., Shamus is usually railing at a sucky game, Jack is usually poking fun at all the shortcomings of popular culture...) to bother with group video games.
So me and Minx (and Julie and Nicole) decided to play Left 4 Dead one bright, sunny day in April, about two days after my birthday. We thought a good zombie game would sit well with the left-over cake and ice cream, because apparently seeing half-rotted oozing humans explode is a good idea after just eating junk food (trust me, lads, I don't get it either), and the fact that we get free guns was also nice at the time. A Christ-load of ammo also tickled our fancies.
Too bad nobody told us there were a million zombies, and thirty percent of them could kill us really easily.
Yeah, at the time, nobody really knew that a "tank" did not refer to the giant, slow-moving vehicle of explosive destruction, nor that "witches" were not the ugly old crows with green skin in pointy black hats, and "hunters" were not friendly Paul Bunyan-esque people with free rifles on hand.
We sure as anything found out, though.
And it was a painfully well-learned lesson.
Of course, I was made to be the only girl of the group. Role reversal? Oh, hardly. Then they gave me two pistols and a sniper rifle.
Life is good.
Then I got a Molotov and a health kit and some quick-health pills.
Life is really good.
Everybody else had M16s and shotguns. Suckers!
So we go out of the safe room, and not even three seconds out of the starting gate, we're shooting zombies. Eventually, we got bored with just shooting zombies, so we decided to fool around. I did this funny little thing where I asked a random team member if they wanted my Molotov, and they said sure, so I threw it at them.
The joke was supposed to be that since their characters can't catch flying bombs, they would light on fire and give me a reason to be aggravated that they didn't catch it.
But I guess the Witch didn't think that was funny.
And then I died. Funny how sniper rifles are terrible at close range, huh?
So, after reviving somewhere and being saved by my companions (I actually don't remember if I was saved or if I just spawned next to them), we decided to not do that again. Unfortunately, we had little time to decide much else, because a Hunter jumped Minx and began tearing her apart, so we had to save her. But, I couldn't do that because a Smoker had tongue-raped me and was slowly dragging my violated body to a wall and up to a roof somewhere. So, Julie had to save me, get the boomer bile-stricken Nicole to a place where the inevitable horde couldn't reach her, and revive Minx. We paid her double pills for single-handedly killing the horde.
Suddenly, Left 4 Dead stopped being all fun and games. I guess that's what we get for spawning a Witch with fire, hm?
We were only halfway through the next level when:
Suddenly, Tank.
I mistook him for King Kong without hair. And he mistook me for his next meal.
So, I ended up dying AGAIN, but I did manage to finally kill the jerk, despite only being able to use my pistols.
When we finally completed the campaign we were on (I think it was Dead Air), the end credits said "In Memory of LeighAlura", and Minx cried.
Shut up, Minx.
Final results of the first campaign:
Headshots:
LeighAlura (589)
ManateeMinx (345)
NotNicoleRichie (221)
JamiesGotTwinGuns (27)
Zombies Killed:
LeighAlura (896)
ManateeMinx (453)
JamiesGotTwinGuns (332)
NotNicoleRichie (321)
Times Healed:
LeighAlura (21)
ManateeMinx (13)
JamiesGotTwinGuns (10)
NotNicoleRichie (0)
Most Team Mates Healed:
JamiesGotTwinGuns (34)
NotNicoleRichie (10)
LeighAlura (0)
ManateeMinx (0)
The list goes on.
I figure about eight thousand zombies were harmed in the making of that video.
Narrow Scope: Haunting Grounds part 2
Continuing where I left off last night on Demento, once you get dressed, you are free to explore the room. And yes, you can look at the painting the perverted guy was behind, but you won't see him there. You'll just see a painting. A rather boring one. Oh, and all the paintings with a man featured in them are the same guy.
Now, I never actually went to explore the room any, except for a few items later, but if you go to the T.V. and turn it on, you get your first freak-out effect of the game, where everything gets all grainy and saturated and turns black and white. God forbid you enter full-on panic mode, because then you can just forget about having good eyesight. Thankfully, it's only happened once to me, because the panic bar takes a long time to fill up unless you go out of your way to freak yourself out as much as possible. But why the bloody hell would you do that? This isn't Clock Tower, for god's sake!
I think I just heard Minx snort milk up her nose from laughing so hard.
So!
By turning on the T.V., and I am absolutely spoiling this, you give yourself a distraction for enemies to take note of while you hide. It won't always work, though, so don't go making a habit of it. I died several times.
Since there's really nothing left in the room to do, you get to wander around a bit. And as soon as you leave your room and go left through the hallway (Don't mind the bloody pillar), and you get to the next doorway-
Debi throws a doll at you.
And then he tries to kill you.
So run.
This is where my little hint comes in handy, because as soon as you hide, Debi comes into your room, and if you turned on the T.V., instead of going immediately to the bed and finding you, he will turn off the T.V., wander around a bit, then leave. You'll know when you're safe because ALL CLEAR! will feature on the screen. But, I personally never did trust that.
Be aware that Debi will chase you around a lot. So be prepared to run. Or, if you feel stupid, you can kick at him, but god help you if you happen to get caught in one of his hugs. Good luck getting out of that!
Wait, this went from a review to a walkthrough, what did I just, I don't even...
It must be too early for this.
Or I should find a different game to talk about. Demento has kind of been an obsession since I got it.
Now, I never actually went to explore the room any, except for a few items later, but if you go to the T.V. and turn it on, you get your first freak-out effect of the game, where everything gets all grainy and saturated and turns black and white. God forbid you enter full-on panic mode, because then you can just forget about having good eyesight. Thankfully, it's only happened once to me, because the panic bar takes a long time to fill up unless you go out of your way to freak yourself out as much as possible. But why the bloody hell would you do that? This isn't Clock Tower, for god's sake!
I think I just heard Minx snort milk up her nose from laughing so hard.
So!
By turning on the T.V., and I am absolutely spoiling this, you give yourself a distraction for enemies to take note of while you hide. It won't always work, though, so don't go making a habit of it. I died several times.
Since there's really nothing left in the room to do, you get to wander around a bit. And as soon as you leave your room and go left through the hallway (Don't mind the bloody pillar), and you get to the next doorway-
Debi throws a doll at you.
And then he tries to kill you.
So run.
This is where my little hint comes in handy, because as soon as you hide, Debi comes into your room, and if you turned on the T.V., instead of going immediately to the bed and finding you, he will turn off the T.V., wander around a bit, then leave. You'll know when you're safe because ALL CLEAR! will feature on the screen. But, I personally never did trust that.
Be aware that Debi will chase you around a lot. So be prepared to run. Or, if you feel stupid, you can kick at him, but god help you if you happen to get caught in one of his hugs. Good luck getting out of that!
Wait, this went from a review to a walkthrough, what did I just, I don't even...
It must be too early for this.
Or I should find a different game to talk about. Demento has kind of been an obsession since I got it.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Narrow Scope: Haunting Grounds
I can't really say Haunting Grounds was my most-favorite game; in fact, if I did, it would be so obvious a lie that liars everywhere would knock over their gravestones from the churning dirt because they rolled so hard. Now, I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but it sounded funny in my head, and now my sister's pestering me about it sounding incredibly stupid put to words.
Shut up, Minx.
Anyhow, back on topic. Haunting Grounds, called Demento in Not America. I prefer Demento, because at least that title fits the bill better. I mean... Haunting Grounds, really? Once you get, maybe, a third of the way into the game (say, after defeating Debilitas), it turns from scary into "An Alchemist Did It", and after two hundred some-odd episodes of Full Metal Alchemist, I just can not take that seriously.
I love how they try so hard to cover that fact up, though. They stole the room full of hanging marionettes from some other horror game, I can tell. And just for giggles, if you happen to go into that room and forget to disable the trap (or whatever that power box was supposed to do, I don't know, I just followed the walkthrough without really checking), they put in a wall-o'-eyeballs that shoot nails at you. Of course, you don't see yourself getting killed, but you do see a generous helping of strawberry jam splatter onto the wall, along with several nails, and a marionette just hangs its head in shame at the player.
Oh, and the strawberry jam is a reference to Rooster Teeth's "Jar-o'-jelly" effect that happens when you get close to dying in Modern Warfare 2. And in both games, I honestly have to say that they did not do our body's life fluids justice.
Not.
At.
All.
Ah, I seem to be getting off track here...
The game starts out with a fairly gripping opening movie. Somebody cries blood, Fiona Belli is walking through a shiny red hallway, wearing nothing but a sheet (proving to me that Capcom is full of perverted old men), and then cut to Fiona being chased by a big ogre of a man to some not exactly settling music.
If you can call it music.
See, I think somebody got confused when the game designers said "Make a soundtrack that sounds creepy". I think they heard the guys say "Make a carcrash that sounds crappy", because honestly, that's what it seems like. Especially when you fight a certain "uncle" later on. (My god! He's got a gun! He has got a gu- GAH HE JUST SHOT ME!)
On second thought, don't. Some things aren't meant to be seen.
Shut up, Minx.
Anyhow, back on topic. Haunting Grounds, called Demento in Not America. I prefer Demento, because at least that title fits the bill better. I mean... Haunting Grounds, really? Once you get, maybe, a third of the way into the game (say, after defeating Debilitas), it turns from scary into "An Alchemist Did It", and after two hundred some-odd episodes of Full Metal Alchemist, I just can not take that seriously.
I love how they try so hard to cover that fact up, though. They stole the room full of hanging marionettes from some other horror game, I can tell. And just for giggles, if you happen to go into that room and forget to disable the trap (or whatever that power box was supposed to do, I don't know, I just followed the walkthrough without really checking), they put in a wall-o'-eyeballs that shoot nails at you. Of course, you don't see yourself getting killed, but you do see a generous helping of strawberry jam splatter onto the wall, along with several nails, and a marionette just hangs its head in shame at the player.
Oh, and the strawberry jam is a reference to Rooster Teeth's "Jar-o'-jelly" effect that happens when you get close to dying in Modern Warfare 2. And in both games, I honestly have to say that they did not do our body's life fluids justice.
Not.
At.
All.
Ah, I seem to be getting off track here...
The game starts out with a fairly gripping opening movie. Somebody cries blood, Fiona Belli is walking through a shiny red hallway, wearing nothing but a sheet (proving to me that Capcom is full of perverted old men), and then cut to Fiona being chased by a big ogre of a man to some not exactly settling music.
If you can call it music.
See, I think somebody got confused when the game designers said "Make a soundtrack that sounds creepy". I think they heard the guys say "Make a carcrash that sounds crappy", because honestly, that's what it seems like. Especially when you fight a certain "uncle" later on. (My god! He's got a gun! He has got a gu- GAH HE JUST SHOT ME!)
Don't mind that, lads.
Anyhow, back to the point. So, cue opening sequence of the game, we now know there was an awful carcrash (and will be reminded several times throughout the game), and it's enough to startle Fiona awake. Three times.
Mr. Alura would like to take the time to add that this game severely overdoes the Double Repetition bit.
So, Fiona wakes up. And this is after you get to see Debilitas chop up... something... and shove it into a vat of... something else... and then leave when it splatters him. And poor little Debi, with his five-year-old mind, forgot to re-do your cage's lock, so you (and your bedsheet) manage to escape.
And then get jumped by a dog. Big spoiler regarding that dog: Look at the box cover. See a dog there? So did I.
At that point, I didn't need to have Fiona pick up the collar that said "Hewie" on it to know that the dog was going to be the single most important factor of the game. So important, in fact, that if he dies on harder difficulties, SO DO YOU.
And I'm not even lying when I tell you that I died so many times, mates. So. Many. Times.
So, you then get to control her (Fiona) for... about a second... and then another cutscene of a gratuitous posterior shot of her walking up the stairs, with her bedsheet swaying in the wind as she does, serving only to make her rumpus seem that much larger to the male audience.
Now, after that, you get to control her again. Thankfully, the fighting only happens later, when you actually have some clothing, so you won't have to worry about dying just yet. And, unfortunately for the men, since you can't die yet, you don't get to see Fiona limply drop the bedsheet as she dies.
Sorry, lads.
And yes, I do say "lads" and "mates" a lot, it's in my genetic code, shut up.
The only real place you can go at the present time is to the room upstairs, where you get immediately greeted by a creepy maid. With an even creepier voice actress. And a creepy contemptuous stare. In fact, it's right of you to assume that she is an enemy, because trust me, she is, and she is possibly the scariest enemy of the game.
For the record, you never really learn her name, so I'll give you a freebie here: Daniella. Her name is Daniella.
And she has brought you the first set of perverted clothing that the game offers you. With a skirt that short, I think I don't need to explain to the men of the video game community what a "generous panty shot" looks like.
And if you thought you were terrible for getting off to this, imagine what the guy behind the picture watching you dress is like.
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