Date my Avatar? The Guild!

I love this video. Felicia O’Day is awesome and so is the rest of the crew from The Guild.

Prototype: Zero Punctuation, hilarity

I finally got my hands on Prototype today. I wrote about it 6 months ago? I could actually check that date, but that would require me to CTRL + A, CTRL + C, press back, find the date, and then forward and CTRL + V what I’ve just written down to find this out. In fact, it would have been quicker to just do that then take the time to type why I won’t do that. Oops.

On another note, I haven’t had this much fun playing a game in awhile. I get immense joy out of causing massive destruction while jumping around a city eating people’s memories for fun or taking their appearance by eating them because I’m bored. The story line isn’t really keeping me interested, but that’s okay because I have the ability to glide around a rather well done version of New York and release a reign of terror unlike any other with my almost impossible to destroy character.

One of my favorite reviews on it comes from Yahtzee!

Zero Punctuation: Prototype.

Just for the giggles, a College Humor stint.

Why am I turning into such a Prototype fangirl?

Dreamcast. Oh memories.

Anyone remember Space Channel 5 for Dreamcast?

The better question might be: does anyone remember Dreamcast? Oh. Poor thing got squished into the ground by PS One. This game was basically about a news reporter who is investigating Aliens that are making humans dance and you must dance to both survive and save hostages ! It’s like ‘Simon Says’ except in more hilarious alien-killing fun tastic form. That’s right, FUN TASTIC.

Yes. This was seriously a game.

Gaming is GOOD for your eyesight!

Awhile ago the unsubstantiated rumor began that gaming was bad for your eyesight. However, newer studies say otherwise.

People who used a video-game training program saw improvements in their contrast sensitivity, or the ability to notice subtle differences in shades of gray, according to a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The training could be beneficial to people who have amblyopia–commonly known as lazy eye–and those who have trouble seeing while driving at night, the study said.

This is especially important to me as I suffer from night blindness and find it extremely difficult to drive at night. Albeit, I’ve been playing video games for a long time now … so why haven’t I felt this improvement? Idea: Perhaps I shall go on a Resident Evil 5 tangent for 10 hours and then attempt to drive at night and see if there is any “sudden” improvement.

“Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery–somehow changing the optics of the eye,” Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, said in a statement. “But we’ve found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped.”

Researchers studied two groups that played video games for 50 hours during a nine-week course. One group played action games such as “Call of Duty 2″ and “Unreal Tournament 2004.” Another group played non-action games such as “Sims 2,” which doesn’t require precise, visually guided aiming actions. People who played the action games showed enhanced contrast sensitivity compared with those in the non-action game group, with improvements ranging from 43 percent to 58 percent, according to the study.

I already play a ton of games, but perhaps I can use this to justify my addiction! After all, I suffer from night blindness and my left eye is “legally blind” which really just means everything is blurry, unless they are super large letters.

Either way, with all the bad publicity surrounding video games, especially action video games that frequently involve violence, this is a HA-HA-IN-YO-FACE kind of article.

Play on, dear gamers, play on.

Prototype

On 6/17/2009 a new game is splashing onto the market: Prototype.

I find myself increasingly in love with this game the more I watch trailers of it and the more I hear people talk about it.  From the story line, it kind of seems like it attempts to take an Resident Evil approach, except not from a hero point of view, but an “infected” point of view. You have been transformed into some sort of creature per virus and you must survive to find out why as you are gunned down by Black Watch Special Forces.

The game play looks intense and every time one of your foes is consumed as energy, I can’t help but feel gleeful. A swirl of “red snakes” moves around you and wah-lah, energy. For those who have played Resident Evil 5: think Uboros, except red tentacles. It’s weird because it’s almost the same kind of monster. Save, Alex Mercer, the main character, can shape shift and isn’t formed to be on silly blob.

You could also see the Prototype comic, or at least part of it.

Here is an excerpt;

The muscular monster reminds me of the Licker from Resident Evil 5. Anyone? Anyone?

Now, I know I keep making RE references, but I’m sure this game will have it’s own original merit.  We’ll see if I’m right or wrong in about 3 months!

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility

I have something I have to get off my chest: I love the Harvest Moon series. There. I’ve said it. I’ve come clean.  In fact, it is probably the sole reason I became the gamer that I am today. I mean, other than the original Nintendo and Sega games. I got Harvest Moon for N64 and have been crack addicted to not only gaming, but the series since.  Every platform that I have gotten since N64 has been because of Harvest Moon. When it came out for PS ONE, I got Back to Nature. When it came out for the original Gameboy and then Gameboy Color, I got both of those. When it came out for the DS? Got that. When it came out for Gamecube, A Wonderful Life? Got that. PS2? God that. Even though that turned out to be Save the Homeland which has been the only failure in the series in my eyes.

When it came out for Wii? Got the Wii first (though, regretted this later because PS3 > Wii).

The most recent Harvest Moon is that for the Wii. Its title name is;

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility.

I must say that I was super excited to hear about this game when it was in development. I waited diligently for a year and was at the closest EB before it had even arrived, waiting around awkwardly and looking pretty much like the biggest loser in existence.

Was I disappointed? No.

However, staring first with the “WTF” …

What is up with this being an eligible bachelorette? I mean … I say it because I can’t tell in the game if it’s a child or a woman. Seriously. In the game … I was convinced for the longest time I knew she was the little sister of Candance, but I thought LITTLE sister, not .. pedo-bait. She looks like one of the children in the game! It’s disturbing. It’s like, hm, what is that type of porn called, Lolita? Oh, right. Lolicon.

Lolicon (ロリコン ^?), also romanized as rorikon, is a slang portmanteau of the phrase “Lolita complex”.^[1][2] In Japan, the term describes an attraction to young girls,^[3] or an individual with such an attraction.^[4][5] Outside Japan, the term is less common and most often refers to a genre of manga and anime wherein childlike female characters are depicted in an erotic manner.

ie; This:

Source.

It’s just strange to see a character like this in the game and in a few ways, a bit wrong.

Now, Tree of Tranquility is in no means better than the Back to Nature or N64 version, but it was still good! It brought back a lot of features from the series. For instance, rivals being able to marry which is something I hadn’t seen since N64 or Back to Nature.  You can have a boy or a girl child, which is also amazing! Finally, you can get some gender differences in there. This game also allows you to choose boy or girl, as opposed to other versions, where there was a game where you were only a boy and then another came out where you could play a girl. Nope, this is all in one. They also allow you to arrange furniture ( Bwa haha!) and have multiple outfits in many colors and based on the seasons! Why does this bring the glee-girly side out of me? I hate those things in real life, but suddenly you put them in cute pixels and it’s the best thing ever.

The overall game play is kind of boring. It gets repetitive pretty quickly and yet there is so much to do to maintain that constant high cash flow. I find myself out till 12 midnight which makes the game go by very slow and strangely makes those cut scenes very rewarding because they are a break from the monotony of working towards them and all that that includes. However, once you’re done, well … you’re done. If there is one complaint I’ve always had about Harvest Moon is that they need to add more content. In a Wonderful Life, it progressed for quite a while through many seasons and you aged, your child grew, and events changed and happened.

This game was devoid of that. I need more cut scenes, more RP, more options to interact, more things to strive for, more things to take off the workload. That’s actually a key point … building myself up is fun and all, but when I have $100,000 in the bank and all I’m doing is working, working, and working, I’d wish they’d implement new ideas. For instance, a sprinkler system that costs $50,000.  That way perhaps all you have to do is fill up the basin, but it waters all the plants. That would be wonderful! It would also be cool to be able to have more than one child and for the children to grow up. If that involves making your character age like in A Wonderful Life, that wouldn’t be so bad. I mean age to where they can marry and perhaps leave the ranch even and then come back and help. Then when you die, your child can take over in your memory. What about more festivals? Those are always a fun break from the monotony. Some of my FAVORITE festivals where in the Back to Nature version. I LOVED the Goddess Festival (All the eligible bachelorettes line up and dance in white!) and I loved going to the Church and playing the Ocarina! Those were some of the best festivals. I can’t believe the Horse Race was not in Tree of Tranquility!

Enough with the brainstorming, though. The overall gameplay was fun for the first 2 years and while I felt they could have done more since it was a farming simulation and you have a Wii remote, they did do a good (albeit weird …)  job.

Resident Evil 5: I feel a little violated…

I have officially finished the game. I finished it this morning at 8:07 am after pulling an all-nighter.

This post is going to be one big, huge, SPOILER. So if you haven’t beat the game, I wouldn’t read it. Or if you haven’t and just don’t care, that’s fine, too. After all, RE is kind of predictable now and you probably know it without realizing it where it is going.

Lets begin with what I was getting at in my last post. Resident Evil 5 is an evolution in the series. You could say RE4 was the beginning and 5 is where it is going.  This saddens me a bit because the game went from being super scary to play where your hands were almost always constantly shaking from mass adrenaline and you had to have the lights on because, ho crap, there is a zombie behind that door that you just opened and it wants your brains!

Now it’s more like … hey, here is some music and noises to indicate that a zombie attack is coming. Also, lets include a cutscene in this area so you definitely know, just incase the firey bomb didn’t clue you in since — oh, zombies can now weild bottles, machine guns, guns, bows, arrows, bombs, chase you in vehicles, on boats …

Not to say this is a bad thing. It is definitely a new dynamic, but the game overall was very easy, I guess you could say.

Who would have thought this clothed figure was Jill!? Pretty obvious.

You progress through an endless stream of ‘partners’ and ‘partner work’ until you finally get somewhere good and that is Jill. Oh yes, Jill is definitely alive. Albeit, now she is blonde … and to this, quick speil, WHAT THE HELL? Why was that even necessary? Did they decide that blonde hair and blue eyes would be better? What a completely unnecessary change. I loved Jill the way she was. Lets just make her typical, eh? Good idea! On another note, I’m totally going to be Jill for Halloween. Except RE3: Nemesis version.

The battle? Sigh. It took me 2 minutes or less to complete and it just involves pressing a combination of buttons to remove a device off her chest.  Evidently it kepts a steady flow of the virus that controls her and allows for control as it just surpresses free will. On another note, she is aware of everything that she is doing as she states in the cutscene. That would suck knowing you’re about to kill your lover, I mean partner.

That’s the “best” battle because the final Wesker battle… are you serious? I’ve never played such an easier boss battle as that battle was. Even Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 … a Disney/Square Enix game … provided more of a challenge than that battle. Oh? I’m out of bullets? Let me run up to Wesker and we can just melee him to death! Ohp, don’t forget that action button though!

On another note. Wesker is a badass. I absolutely adore him as a villian. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the crazy that draws me in, or the shades. Either way he’s a villian with class and no heart. What could be better? Whose a cute wiw villian! ^__^

Oh. I almost forgot to make mention of a new “villian” who showed up only to die at the hand of oh so villainous Wesker. Miss Excella Gionni.

She was ballsy, that’s for sure. Though, I must say her voice was just a tad bit annoying. What I love most about her is Wesker’s betrayal towards her (hah @ her thinking he had a heart) and the fact she turned into a giant Uboros that I basically got to kill with a missile. Locked on and ‘KABOOM’. Easy battle.

I don’t know. I loved the game, I really did. I mean it was fun and when you’re playing a game that’s all that matters. I’d even give it an A rating and say it’s definitely worth playing repeatedly. However, I guess I just expected more out of it. Then again, Chris is so “single-minded” as Wesker so kindly points out that I suppose that suppresses dynamic. Though, I do love Chris. I can’t help it. He’s been there since Day 1 and you grow to love the chap. I’m interested to see what happens in the future Resident Evil series, other than killing “zombies” in as many ways as possible.

The ending? Well. That is one thing I wish they would expand upon. Same ol’, same ol’ rescued by a hellicopter scene and Chris pondering. All predictable. I think RE needs to inject some unpredictability back into their games, or I may not be as amused by the series in the future.

Ah, who am I kidding? Zombie killing is always fun.

Resident Evil 5

I must say, I do love Resident Evil 5 despite my first predictions. I had not planned on getting it, but after enough coercing I decided to go ahead and buy it.  I have only made it to chapter 3-2, so these are all initial impressions, and I’m going to try to keep this as spoiler free as possible by focusing more on gameplay. If I think something is a spoiler, I’ll be sure to let you know in advance so that I don’t ruin any of the plotline for you.

The graphics are amazing. However, I guess I am less impressed by graphics being amazing because a lot of good games have amazing graphics. That should just be a given at this point. It’s a PS3, if youre graphics suck, re-think yor job.

The controls are pretty functional. I’m not sure how I feel about them in totality, but they are easy to learn and allow for quick movement. I can be shooting one second, and swiping with my knife the next. There are a few bugs in the game. For instance, I once had a headshot and the body kept walking towards me … without a head for a good “6 feet”, before it finally fell to the ground.  The most annoying one I have encountered is when I have room in my inventory, but for some reason it says I am ‘full’ on ammo. I’m not sure if this is a bug, or just a poorly designed aspect of the game.

As to be expected aiming can be slightly annoying. I’ve always found aiming annoying on a PS3 controller because it lacks resistance. I’ve stated this many times before. However, aiming can be annoying for other reasons — environmental factors. At one point in the game I was aiming at a zombie after I had just come out of the mines (POTENTIAL SPOILER HEAD) and it was the level right before the scary boss with the enormous tail that you have to shoot, well, it was a zombie that shot fire and so he was not moving and he was in front of the sun which had a massive glare. (END SPOILER) That’s right … glare. The kind you would suffer from if you were driving towards the sun. It was so bad that I couldn’t see my red laser pointer and couldn’t see where I was shooting him. I was low on ammo so just randomly shooting was not a good idea because it would be a waste of bullets. I tried running around, but that did little good because I had masses coming still. So … it was interesting that something intended to be realistic was actually so realistic it interfered with my ability to shoot + kill a zombie. This is a WHOLE new dynamic on realism in games, when the fake environment actually affects in us in a way our real environment would. The light was so bright, I actually squinted and felt my eyes well up because the light was to bright … especially since I had not blinked in like, 10 minutes.

As for the AI, Sheva, your partner which they let you know in most cutscenes that she is your partner and you are her partner and partners never leave each other because you are partners (this pointed out by a friend named Corey), she is probably the most useless and annoying AI in the Resident Evil series. When she’s not shooting me in the back, stun gunning me, getting in the way of my shot, I move to get around her, and she moves IN FRONT of me again, or taking up all my herbs and ammo, she’s fine. Oh, does that all sound pretty bad? Yeah…

Now. I know you can get rid of the shooting in the back by taking off auto-react, but I haven’t tried it yet.  However, that’s really not the most annoying part of her so much as everything else was. I found the best strategy for good ol’ Sheva was to turn her into my little healing bot/stun bot. She wields the stun rod and most of the herbs and then I store a few things on her that I may need. She works wonders and I haven’t died yet because of her failsauce. When she gets her stun rod, she’s also very good about doing martial art moves. She stuns them, and then this is followed by a kick and watching them fall off a building. Pretty awesome.
I have so much ammo I don’t know what to do with it now and I never die. It’s awesome. S ratings, for the win.

As for her character, well, she’s interesting. However, to me, she’s what you’d expect. There’s no real mystery to her. I guess they could of done worse.

As for Chris, well, he’s still Chris. Still one dimensional, very little personality, typical Chris. However, he’s been there since the beginning of RE, so I guess I can’t help but be a bit fond of him despite his lack of real personality. At least in comparison to other characters who have been introduced in the games.

On another note, there are a few things that make me sad on the inside about the game. You know, I loved RE 4 and I realize that that game was the turning point away from the more “traditional zombies”, but one thing I sorely miss and that this game does not have, is I miss walking down the scary corridor with my gun out, opening doors only to find a zombie behind it that scares the crap out of me. That never ending sense that you can be killed by any number of things at any time behind any door and you have no idea what is coming.

RE5 kind of lacks that (at least thus far) in my opinion. If there is a zombie coming, you’ll hear music. If there is a horde of zombies coming, definitely get a mini-cut scene + music. It’s just like … I know they wanted to focus on the virus and how it’s a bio weapon now, but the game is no longer scary. The zombies? Well, they aren’t really zombies, so much as the creatures similar to 28 Days Later and infected with a “rage” virus except they are slow moving and like to pause a lot before they attack you. So I guess that is an aspect of the game I do miss, however, that doesn’t detract from RE5, it just means Resident Evil has evolved much like it’s viruses. It will just take some getting used to, I suppose.

I highly recommend RE5. It’s quite a thrill and I’ll definitely do a more detailed review once I have  finished it, but that will be more story line based and you’ll probably have to avoid it if you haven’t played yet or care about the story line — which is turning out to be a very interesting indeed.

PS3: Oh god, it’s so good.

I have been teetering on the line of buying a PS3 for awhile now.  Back when they were $699 I scoffed at the thought. No way was I paying $699. I also would never commit the sin of buying an Xbox 360.

Then I proceeded to become angry when Assassin’s Creed, GTA4,  LittleBig Planet, etc came out. There were a couple of times where I showed up to Gamestop or EB Games ready to buy it with money in hand only to go, “No! NO! I will not pay $499.”

I finally broke down. On an impromptu whim I walked into Gamestop on 2-20-2009, looked at it, saw the $399 tag for 80gb and went, ” … I can’t wait anymore.”
I bought the gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, wonderful, fantastic, heavenly piece of machinery ( and coincidentally found a HDTV on craigslist for only $265! ) and quickly bought up GTA4 and Assasin’s Creed.

Not pictured: Wii, PS2

No amount of literary skills can describe the feeling of turning the PS3 system on, putting in your first game (Assassin’s Creed) and waiting, waiting, waiting, and then finally — it finished installing on the hard drive, oh my god, oh my god, and you start to play.

In the case of Assassin’s Creed, what greets you is a visually stunning masterpiece with a solid story line. You are thrust into the world of “science” and genetic memory, betrayal, religious wars, and most importantly — lots and lots of murder, killing, and torture. What more could one ask for? I remember feeling like my eyes were going to pop out of my head from sheer glory — like I shouldn’t be able to witness such a beautiful sight, but alas, I am.  Is it bad that a game system and a game can remind you why living life can be so wonderful? I think the answer to that is perhaps. If I gave me the choice between seeing Grand Canyon and Assassin’s Creed, I would most definitely choose Assassin’s Creed. This thought is scary.

Unfortunately, Assassin’s Creed does start to become a tiny bit repetitive after the first “memory” campaign is over. It’s kind of like rinse and repeat. Lookouts, saving civilians, assassinate, blend in, run … however, the game is so beautiful that you’ll find it going by very quickly.

Next in: GTA 4. Now, I have played GTA4 before. I have friends who have PS3’s and when it came out, being a long time fan, I had to play (it just required getting the owner of the PS3 drunk first, who!). I have played it on both PS3 and Xbox360. Graphically, PS3 takes the cake. There is no comparison, Xbox360 wishes it could match the power of the PS3 (and I don’t even have the HDMI cable yet, it’s in the mail…). The graphics move seamlessly with no lag, no sudden lines, no split art, no “exaggerated” pixels.

The only knock on it I have is handling. This point goes to Xbox 360. On Xbox 360 it’s so much easier to handle the car, for whatever reason. I think it has more to do with the design of the controller and the fact that the joysticks have more tension in comparison to the PS3’s controller, where they don’t face any resistance. I think even in shooter games, like Resident Evil 5, it would help to have a little resistance to making aiming just a tad easier. Then again, I don’t know if I’ve ever been a fan of the PlayStation controller. Perhaps with PS One.

Either way, GTA4 is exceptionally fun much like its entire series. Anymore said it would just drive the point into the ground. Though, I still don’t agree with IGN giving GTA4 a 10/10. That’s bogus — but, whatever. It’s still an awesome game and totally worth the $30 price tag.

I obviously have not had a lot of time with my new baby, but so far I’m impressed beyond words. I mean, I knew a lot of this stuff already. This is not the first time I’ve played one, but it is the first time I’ve got to sit down and play it for countless hours.

PS3 Grade: A+ (+++++++++ x Infinity x Forever)

Random Note:  I was carded to buy L4D, but I was not carded to buy GTA4 or Assassin’s Creed. [ponder]

Left 4 Dead

Right off the bat: I love this game. No, I adore this game. I’ve been playing WoW for about 4.5 years now and I must say that playing L4D is a refreshing break.

First, I lost faith in a lot of the co-op games because, lets face it, no one completely understands what co-op is. You have those people who come in game and break out and run off on their own and the glory of it is that in this game … they tend to die, especially on versus.

This completely makes my day. Burn fsckers, burn! Hell, I’ll help you along and throw a Malotov at you! For extremely annoying players, I tend to auto shot them in the face.

Not really, of course. Losing a player can be detrimental with the constant rampage of infected, special infected, and the almighty tank.  However, one player can screw a team over if they are completely without talent. Amazingly, though, I haven’t come across many that are so retarded you wonder how they figured out downloading the game.

I will not claim to be an almighty player. I just started a week ago, but I don’t have the learning curve of a dead cat, either.

So what are the pros of the game? It adds a new dynamic on co-op. You need all 4 of the players to live or your life is miserable. The 4 “super” infected add a twist to just killing zombies. The Boomer vomits on you to make you super attractive to the infected, the Hunter jumps long distance to land and slice you, the smoker does a great job of pulling you off of buildings, ramps, and other places to get you from your team and kill you. Then there is the witch. Oh, the witch. She’s semi-easy to get around. Flash lights off and just don’t look at her. However, if you startle her or fail to kill her quickly enough, she definitely knocks you down and kills you in 4-5 hits.

Then you have the Tank. He can incapacitate you in 3 hits and take you down before your team can save you. It’s best to stay out of his way and shoot from above, far away, and to keep him off of you.

In case these infected and super infected weren’t enough — you have awesome maps to increase the difficulty of surviving ( as well as difficulty levels: easy, normal, advanced, expert ). My personal favorite being Blood Harvest. There’s nothing like running through a field of corn being attacked that makes one reminisce about ‘Children of the Korn’.

In addition to all of this and all that is unmentioned, you have versus mode. 8 players get together to play both Survivors and Infected in hopes to destroy each other. This definitely takes a level of skill because the infected are no longer mindless and the greater groups tend to plot the death of the Survivors.

I love playing the Hunter. While I definitely haven’t mastered the Hunter, I can’t wait to learn the long jump. If done correctly you can land +25 damage and 2.5 per claw while on top of your victim. It can make life miserable, not to mention if you have enough hunters to pin down 3 of the teammates. Throw in a smoker and you have — death!

This is all theory of course and it’s always much harder than it seems. Timing can be off. However, the leads to another features — chat & voice chat! Oh yes. You can communicate in game to make any amount of infected killing better. Surprisingly — you don’t have many people on there being stupid.  At least, in my 28 hours of game play since Feb. 7.  I’m sure it exists and I’ve seen many blogs/posts saying so, but evidently not so much that it’s completely annoying.

Ah, how I love the game. I definitely recommend picking up a copy and getting your play on.  Oh, but it’s M for Mature so you better be 17+. I got carded when I picked up my copy. It was sad. I guess at 21 I still look like a 16 year old.

L4D — for the Win!